What's New!

Supplies:

• Bowls or containers to use to make the ice
• Large tray with sides or cookie sheet
• Salt
• Liquid watercolors or food coloring – please note that food coloring can stain
• Droppers and/or a spoon

Instructions:

1. Fill a variety of bowls or containers with water and freeze them at least overnight. Different sizes and depths are preferred.
2. Remove the ice shapes from their containers and place them on the plastic tray or cookie sheet.
3. Give your child a bowl of table salt – the cheaper the better. Have them sprinkle it on the top of their ice. They can also use a dropper to drop warm water on.
4. Watch as ravines form down the side of the ice as the salt melts it!
5. Squeeze a little bit of a food coloring onto the ice and watch what happens! The food coloring or liquid watercolors will highlight the ravines, crevasses, and tunnels that are forming.
6. Discuss how salt melts the ice.

For the 27^th year in a row, Pikes Peak Library District is being recognized for excellent financial transparency.

The Government Finance Officers Association awarded Pikes Peak Library District the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting this month, the association’s highest award.

“The attainment of this award represents significant accomplishment by a government and its management,” the Government Finance Officers Association said in a press release. “This is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting.”

Each year, the association judges government organizations through an impartial panel. According to the association’s website, the program was designed to motivate government agencies to “go beyond the minimum requirements of generally accepted accounting principles,” with the goal of encouraging financial transparency by those agencies.

Earning this award illustrates an organization’s commitment to good stewardship of public dollars.

“This award is one of the highest honors a government organization can hope to achieve,” said Pikes Peak Library District Chief Financial Officer Michael Varnet. “To receive an award of this caliber so many years in a row is a testament not only to the finance team, but to the Library District as a whole. The group of people I work with each day truly has dedication to transparency and honorable financial reporting, and I am very proud to be part of such a team.”

The president of the Pikes Peak Library District Board of Trustees attended her last board meeting after ten years of service to the library.

Kathleen Owings will retire from the board as of Dec. 31, 2018. Owings first joined the board on Jan. 1, 2009, and was board president from 2012-2014 and in 2018.

Her fellow board members, library employees, and library leaders alike reminisced fondly on Owings’ contributions to the Library District and the community during her final board meeting on Dec. 11, 2018.

“While we are saddened to see Kathleen go, we feel very fortunate to have benefited from her leadership over the last ten years,” said PPLD Chief Librarian and CEO John Spears. “Her direction over the last decade has carried the library forward in such a positive way. Kathleen has put us on a path that will help us best serve all of our patrons across El Paso County for years to come.”

Owings is a Principal and Financial Advisor with Westbilt Financial Group. She is also a current and past member of several boards throughout the Pikes Peak Region, including the Children’s Literacy Center, Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, Colorado Springs Leadership Institute, and the local chapter of the West Point Alumni Association.

The new president of the PPLD Board of Trustees, Wayne Vanderschuere, will take over the role on Jan. 1, 2019. Terms on the board are five years, and board leadership changes annually.