Glenda Langley Dixon spent 37 years working at the Henderson County Public Library with most of that time in the role of the children services manager.
Dixon came on board in 1975 and said she was always proud to provide education for the children who visited the library.
For her longevity and service to the community, Dixon was one of two new community members who were added to the impact signs, which is an exhibition of placards displaying prominent Henderson African Americans and a listing of their community contributions shown at the local Juneteenth Celebration each year.
The other new addition to the Impact Signs is Willie Curry, Jr., who is currently an assistant chief with the Henderson Fire Department and has served with HFD for 20 years.
Both new signs were unveiled at the 4th annual Juneteenth Celebration in Central Park on Thursday evening which according to Juneteenth Chair Dr. Michelle Chappell is the largest since its first event. She estimated 300 people were there.
Dixon and Curry push the number of signs in the exhibition to 13. Curry could not attend Thursday’s event, said Juneteenth organizers.
They join past and present local luminaries (and one school) that include:
- Bobbie Jarrett, current executive director of the Housing Authority of Henderson with more than 40 years of service to the community
- Thomas L. Platt, served the community in many capacities, including service in the Army, working at the Earle C. Clements Job Corps for 23 years and numerous boards
- Robert Pruitt, a current Henderson city commissioner first elected in 2008
- Rev. Dr. Anthony Brooks, Sr., a civil rights advocate in both Henderson and Evansville, past president of Henderson and Evansville NAACP branches, marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Rev. Dr. Adrian Brooks, Sr., a pastor of Henderson churches who was also a social activist in his time in the community, now the pastor of Memorial Baptist Church of Evansville
- Darlene Marshall-Ware, a social worker by trade who is also involved in many community causes and has served on the United Way board and is a founding member of the homeless coalition
- Anthony Black, current principal of South Heights Elementary School
- Laverne F. Dixon, the first African American female deputy at the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office
- Deborah Hoda, the current president of the local NAACP
- Anthony Melvin, a special education teacher at South Heights Elementary School and member of the Audubon Kids Zone board
- Douglass High School, the local Black high school before the end of segregation
Dixon, in an interview at Thursday’s Juneteenth Celebration, said that when she first started at HCPL not a whole lot of African Americans went to the library. She believes that her work at the library was in important in that “it probably felt a little more welcoming (to the African American community) because there was an African American working there.” And as a result, she said she saw more African Americans coming to the library as her career progressed.
Her love for the library began when she was a little girl attending Alves Street Elementary, which she said didn’t have much of a library. The public library, though, that was where whole new worlds opened up in the books it contained, and she went to it often, she said.
Perhaps it was this sort of feeling that led to her work with children all those years.
She said she is proud of her accomplishments including an increase of children’s programs, building the children’s book collection, creating story hours in which whole families would come together. She also supported when the library began opening on Sundays, another time when families came together.
“I felt like it was a place anybody could come and feel welcome,” she said.
Henderson Juneteenth emphasizes three words as its core: “Educate. Empower. Inspire.”
This year’s event focused on educate.
The event chair, Chappell, opened the celebration with a speech in which she commended the virtues of education. “Let us remind our youth today: your mind is powerful, your voice matters, and your future is worth investing in. Whether it’s through trade schools, college, mentorship, or self-taught knowledge—keep learning. Keep building the world our ancestors dreamed of.”
At the event, four $500 scholarships were awarded to local students who will attend or are attending a postsecondary institution or a trade school. The winners are Yarida Santiago, Kentucky Wesleyan College; Vanessa Wolf, Murray State University; Imarie Carter, Sullivan University; and Di’Anna McGuire, Western Kentucky University.
April Johnson, a Juneteenth board member, said the celebration is also a reminder to “know what our foreparents had to come across and overcome for us to live in freedom in today’s world.”