O’Fallon Public Library holds eclipse viewing party
Over 100 joined the O’Fallon Public Library for its eclipse viewing gathering Monday, Aug. 21.
“Well we’ve been anticipating this day for a long time, and now that it’s come, we were not disappointed. Even though it wasn’t the total eclipse, it was close enough,” said Shirley Seipp, who came to the event with her husband, Lawrence, their grandkids, Harper, 4, and Keegan West, 2.
“I think the thing that I was wanting to experience the most was just how much darkness we might experience, and I was surprised at just how much light there still was,” Lawrence Seipp said. “The whole experience was just awesome. Glad I had the chance to experience it with wife and grandchildren.”
St. Clare Catholic School sixth-grader, Emily Landoll, 11, was in the company of family for the viewing at the library.
“It’s so cool. It’s getting darker fast,” Emily said as she watched the sky.
Her mother, Lori Landoll said, “You can really tell how much cooler it’s gotten since the eclipse started — very weird, and kinda of eerie, too, but beautiful nonetheless.”
Bethany Herran, accompanied by her neighbor Sydney Hagen, said her three sons had a day full of activities with their respective schools.
“My (two) boys at OTHS were able to go to Missouri for a field trip for the event, and my youngest, who goes to Carriel (Junior High), went on a field trip to Freeburg with Fulton Junior High kids, too, for a more science-like data collection field trip,” Herran said. “With something this big, all the stuff the schools had planned was great, but some of the teachers took it upon themselves to really run with the chance to make it a memorable experience for the kids.”
Hagen agreed.
“I think it’s just wonderful how involved the kids will get to be with field trips and activities,” she said. “I mean some kids really form their ideas on what to be when they get older based on these types of experiences — ones that literally will last a lifetime. I think that says a lot about our schools and how great they are.”
A couple from Chicago, John and Jennifer Whitkowski, wanted to spend this “once-in-a-lifetime event” with their daughter, Valentina Witkowski, of Shiloh.
“Our local library back home was doing something similar, and so my husband, John, looked into it and saw that the O’Fallon library was having an event. So (we) came here instead of going to Carbondale, Illinois,” Jennifer said. “We really wanted to be in the path of totality — or as close as we could be — and enjoy it with our daughter.”
“And, how lucky are we that it was able to happen?” her husband chimed in.
“The crescents are just beautiful,” Jennifer said.
Teri Rankin, O’Fallon Public Library youth services director, said the library wasn’t going to participate in the eclipse viewing, initially. However, growing interest changed their minds a couple weeks ago.
In early August, the library received 50 eclipse-viewing eye glasses from another library and raffled them off to members.
“Our library director (Molly Scanlan) decided it would be really a lot of fun to have a party on-site. So we got about 175 glasses to hand out to the public,” Rankin said.
Ryan Johnson, library assistant director, said interest in the eclipse was high, with library staff had fielding more than 300 calls about it in the past week.
“I think we’ve been surprised at the number of questions and interest that we’ve been receiving over the last several weeks,” Johnson said. “That was one of the major points of why we wanted to have this on-site party. (It) was kind of responding to all of that interest from the community and just giving them a shared space to come — so not everybody’s in their individual back yards — where they can come together as a neighborhood and as a town, and enjoy this event together.”
It addition to the celestial show, the library also handed out complimentary Moon Pies and bottled water to attendees.
This story was originally published August 21, 2017 at 4:08 PM with the headline "O’Fallon Public Library holds eclipse viewing party."