Ask Virginia Stout about her background and you'll find she has many interesting stories to tell. Her parents are originally from New Jersey. Her father was in the Air Force, and Virginia and her twin sister Katie were born in Japan where their father was stationed at the time. The family, which included three older brothers, later settled at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul. And finally the family took up residence in rural Dewey in a former schoolhouse complete with outdoor playground equipment!

While a baby, Virginia contracted spinal meningitis. When it became apparent at a young age that Virginia had suffered a severe hearing loss, she began her early education in the hearing-impaired program of the Champaign school district. In junior high Virginia returned to her home school district and graduated from Fisher High School.

By 1978, Virginia was taking classes at Parkland College and working as a Library student assistant. Within a year she was job-hunting and was hired at Parkland Library in the technical services department where she has worked ever since. As the Technical Services Assistant, Virginia has a variety of responsibilities which include: book and audiovisual processing, newspaper/periodical check-in, receiving new material and reviewing invoices, computer searching for the cataloging records of materials, and withdrawing material.

Virginia's personal interests are many and varied: cookbooks and cooking (the Library staff enjoys her creations!), science fiction, the history of ancient Egypt, the military, NASA program, nautical "stuff," dogs and horses. She loves to walk for exercise. Virginia's interest in space has prompted her to enroll in the Space Academy programs in Huntsville, Alabama, several times. And her interest in horses led her to the Parkland equine program where she earned an Equine Management Certificate.

Virginia has also spent time researching her New Jersey family genealogy. She discovered that she is related to Penelope Stout, an early American settler. You can read about Penelope in Colonial Women: 23 Europeans Who Helped Build a Nation by Carole Chandler Waldrup and Penelope: The Story of the Half-scalped Woman by Penelope Scambly Schott. Both of these books are owned by Parkland Library.

Virginia likes working in Parkland Library, and she admits to missing the "olden days" where much of her work consisted of record-keeping on paper files. She especially enjoys the outdoor environment of the College and thinks the landscaping is beautiful. She appreciates that most of the College is contained under one roof.

And those are just a few of Virginia Stout's interesting stories.

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