HANCEVILLE — Though it was nearly 19 years ago, Shirley Burden remembers her first day at the Hanceville Public Library as if it were only yesterday.

“I called my son and said, ‘I’m going back to work,’” she said. “He said, ‘Where?’ And I said, ‘The pool room!’ — And he said, ‘What?!’”

The library was indeed located at the old pool hall at Hanceville before eventually moving to its current location at the Merchants Bank building downtown. A former sewing plant manager at Holly Pond, Burden teases that nearly two decades hardly passes for a full second career: “I’ve been doing this 19 years,” she says, “but I was 70 when I started doing it!”

Nov. 6 marked Burden’s last day at the library, the Hanceville location of the Cullman County Public Library. A lifelong Hanceville resident who’s managed the library’s reading program for years, she’s beloved by local children and grown-ups alike: Back in 2017, the reading room at the library was officially named in her honor.

Soon, though, Burden will have her name affixed to more than just a single room. At her well-attended retirement party at the Hanceville Civic Center Saturday, Nov. 16, former Mayor Kenneth Nail, with current Mayor Jimmy Sawyer looking on in approval, announced that city leaders plan to name the library in Burden’s honor.

“I was on the [city] council before I was mayor, and she was at the library even then,” Nail said. “She was just a delight to work with, always. All the kids and parents love her. She’s everything there is to love about Hanceville.”

Burden returns the city’s affection in abundance. “Oh, I can tell you, I’ve loved it — loved everything,” she says. “I’ve loved the kids, I’ve just loved everybody. Working at the library has really been special.”