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The Washington Free Public Library Board of Trustees has chosen a new director for the library.  Former Washington resident Debbie Stanton has been hired to replace Library Director Patrick Finney.  Finney who was the Director for 11 years, left in June to work for the Daniel Boone Regional Library system in Columbia, Missouri.

Stanton was chosen out of 23 applicants from Iowa and seven other states.  She lived in Washington from 2006 to 2009 and served as the Youth Services Librarian for the Kalona Public Library and as the Library Assistant for the Washington Library.

Stanton returns to Washington from Kenai, Alaska where she worked as a Grant Assistant for the Kenaitze Indian Tribe.

She is a student at the University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies and former student at the University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science and holds an undergraduate degree in Library Science from University of Maine at Augusta.

While a resident of Washington, Debbie served on the Washington Community School District Board of Education and the Washington Library Political Action Committee.  She acted as the Secretary of the Iowa Library Associations’ Youth Services Subdivision and served on the State Library Youth Services Advisory Committee on the state level.

Stanton says she and her family are very excited to come back to Washington and are looking forward to reconnecting with the community.  She adds the library is such a great place right now and is honored to get the chance to lead it into the future.  Stanton will begin as the new Library Director October 1st.

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