Latest news with #Logsdon
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Women Veterans Recognition Day hosted in Abilene
ABILENE, Texas () – Abilene's Texas Veterans Commission Employment Services hosted a Women Veterans Recognition Day celebration. The event honored all women who have served our nation. Women Veterans Recognition Day was first established on June 12, 1948, and officially recognized by the state of Texas on June 9, 2017. While Texas was the first state to formally recognize the day, it is now observed in several other states as well. One of the veterans honored in Abilene was Senior Airman Samantha Logsdon, who served as an Air Crew Flight Equipment specialist. Her husband is also in the military, and she followed him to Abilene. Logsdon explained how honored she felt to receive this award. 'It was a recognition not just for me, but for all females who have served in the U.S. military because it is a vastly majority male-dominated field. And just having this little piece to recognize us as individuals was just a great honor,' said Logsdon. Felicia Doss, a veteran honored in Abilene, served in logistics and transportation at Dyess Air Force Base. She expressed her gratitude. 'Being in a room with women who have experienced the same challenges I have faced is truly an honor. It's a privilege to be part of the one percent and to accomplish something that not everyone is able to do,' Doss said. Doss emphasized the importance of veterans staying engaged in their communities, noting that many opportunities exist for them to contribute. She mentioned that veterans in Abilene have numerous ways to get involved, whether they want to support fellow veterans or actively assist those who are still serving. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Yahoo
Man gets jail, to pay restitution for hitting, killing woman waiting for bus in Dayton
May 12—A Dayton man charged connected to a crash where a woman was hit and killed waiting for the bus in 2022 was sentenced to local jail time and paying restitution. Jerry Robert Logsdon, 25, was sentenced by Dayton Municipal Court Judge Franklin W. Gehres to 90 days in the Montgomery County Jail, followed by three years of intensive supervision. His driver's license will be suspended for three years. He was also ordered to pay $5,533.81 in restitution, as well as $250 in fines and $120 in court costs. Logsdon was charged connected to the Dec. 28, 2022 death of Jennifer L. Johnson, 44, of Dayton. At about 8:45 a.m., Logsdon was driving a 2004 GMC Envoy northbound on Wayne Avenue in the left lane, according to a Dayton police crash report. As he approached Clover Street, he attempted to change to the right lane, but apparently lost control, hit the right curb, drove up onto the sidewalk and hit Johnson before crashing into a metal utility pole, the report said. Johnson was standing at the bus stop when she was hit. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Logsdon was taken to Miami Valley Hospital with serious injuries.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Yahoo
Man gets jail, to pay restitution for hitting, killing woman waiting for bus in Dayton
May 12—A Dayton man charged connected to a crash where a woman was hit and killed waiting for the bus in 2022 was sentenced to local jail time and paying restitution. Jerry Robert Logsdon, 25, was sentenced by Dayton Municipal Court Judge Franklin W. Gehres to 90 days in the Montgomery County Jail, followed by three years of intensive supervision. His driver's license will be suspended for three years. He was also ordered to pay $5,533.81 in restitution, as well as $250 in fines and $120 in court costs. Logsdon was charged connected to the Dec. 28, 2022 death of Jennifer L. Johnson, 44, of Dayton. At about 8:45 a.m., Logsdon was driving a 2004 GMC Envoy northbound on Wayne Avenue in the left lane, according to a Dayton police crash report. As he approached Clover Street, he attempted to change to the right lane, but apparently lost control, hit the right curb, drove up onto the sidewalk and hit Johnson before crashing into a metal utility pole, the report said. Johnson was standing at the bus stop when she was hit. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Logsdon was taken to Miami Valley Hospital with serious injuries.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
PBS 'Free for All' documentary explores why public libraries are necessary for democracy
When New Orleans was battening down in the 1960s for the arrival of Hurricane Betsy, Dawn Logsdon's mother was preparing by getting children's books from the library to read by candlelight. 'From that moment on, I was hooked,' remembers Logsdon in 'Free For All: The Public Library,' an 'Independent Lens' documentary airing April 29 at 10 p.m. on Detroit Public TV and other PBS stations. Made by Logsdon (who's the producer, director, editor and narrator) and Lucie Faulknor (producer and co-director), 'Free For All' is a persuasive, clear-eyed love letter to the public library system that lauds its ideals, while also chronicling when it failed to meet them in the past. The film also serves as an urgent call to save public libraries from ongoing efforts to limit their programming and books, cut taxes that support them and, in some cases, shut their doors permanently. The latest threat to the future of public libraries? The Trump administration's cost-cutting plan to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a move described in an executive order as continuation of 'the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary." Early this month, the American Library Association and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed a lawsuit to stop the dismantling of IMLS, which is a prime source of federal funding for public libraries. For some of us, public libraries have long been a part of our everyday lives. Logsdon recalls how her family would spend summer vacations driving across the country on camping trips. At each stop, her mom would take her to the nearest public library. 'By the time I was 12,' she estimates, 'I'd visited over a hundred libraries in almost every state in the union.' 'Free For All,' in essence, is a continuation of Logsdon's journey. For about a decade, she has been recording what happens at public libraries and noticing along the way how they have gone 'from being America's most trusted and least controversial institution to a battle ground in the growing culture wars.' Why? It's the sort of question you could turn to the books in a library to answer. The documentary presents a compelling history of public libraries, warts and all. "Free For All" introduces viewers to some extremely contradictory figures, like the powerful, flawed mega-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who provided the money to build hundreds of public libraries, but simultaneously paid meager wages to the workers who made his steel fortune possible. Another key figure is Melvil Dewey, who came up with the Dewey Decimal System and started the first library college for women -- and later was driven out of the profession by librarians, as Logsdon states, for his pattern of sexually harassment. But the heroes of the documentary aren't the figures mentioned in history books. They are the virtually unknown librarians who devoted their lives to serving their communities -- and who defied the racism and prejudice of their eras in order to do so. While exploring the Seward Park Branch Library in the lower east side of New York, Logsdon tells the story of librarian Ernestine Rose, a reformer who defied the pressure to 'Americanize' immigrants at the turn of the century and instead helped them adjust to their new home offered them books written in the languages of their native countries. Later, at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library in Harlem, Rose integrated the library staff. Black librarians like Regina Andrews were vital to making the site a hub of the Harlem Renaissance that was visited by literary icons by Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. An audio clip shares author James Baldwin's childhood memories of frequenting the branch and reading 'everything there.' Groundbreaking Black librarian Annie McPheeters, whose mother taught her to read and write by drawing in the dirt on their farm, remembers how a white librarian stood in the door of a new Carnegie library in the South in order to block her family from entering. Years later, McPheeters would work in an Atlanta library that a young Martin Luther King Jr. would go to several times a week. Contemporary librarians are honoring their predecessors with their innovation and enthusiasm. Elizabeth Timmins of Muehl Public Library, a Wisconsin librarian of the year, outlines her approach to welcoming children with games and activities: 'My philosophy is I'm throwing a party every day and everybody is invited to the party." Bookmobile driver Tameka Roby of East Baton Rouge Parish Library in Louisiana shares how much she enjoys going out into neighborhoods and helping bring resources to people who can't just access information online, since 'over 40% of our population still doesn't have internet access.' Logsdon makes a strong case that today's public libraries are remarkable places that can be everything from havens for the vulnerable to gathering hubs for activities and arts performances -- and still fulfill their traditional role as a gateway to all kinds of knowledge and entertainment. As Logsdon says in her narration, 'Going to the library, it's a rite of passage many of us share.' I grew up in a small town going to a library that was located in the same strip mall as the laundromat where my mother washed our clothes. It was hard to imagine a better place to be than scouring its shelves for a new adventure to take, a new character to meet, new things to learn about animals or dinosaurs or planets. As an expert source for 'Free For All' describes public libraries at one point, they are 'one of the purest expressions of the possibility of democracy.' Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Free For All' PBS documentary: Public libraries crucial to democracy
Boston Globe
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Still very much in circulation
'Free for All,' part of PBS's 'Independent Lens' documentary series, airs on GBH 2 Tuesday at 10 p.m. and will be available for streaming on Advertisement The Webster Free Circulating Library staff, New York City, c. 1904. Credit: New York Public Library Logsdon, who serves as narrator, is a library lover of long standing. By the time she was 12 she'd visited almost a hundred, in most of the 50 states. Overall, there are currently 17,00 public library buildings in the United States. It's useful to specify 'buildings,' since many public library systems have multiple facilities. The After an extended introductory segment, the documentary visits the BPL, the first urban public library, founded in 1848. Visits are also paid to a neighborhood library on New York's Lower East Side, which has provided services to immigrants for more than a century; a library system in rural Oregon facing closure, because of lack of funding; and the Salt Lake City Public Library, whose public events to attract new patrons are pretty spectacular. Advertisement Those visits occur within a basically chronological narrative. Expect to encounter the names of Melvil Dewey, who in addition to devising a certain decimal system of classification was a serial sexual harasser, and Andrew Carnegie, whose funding of more than 1600 public libraries in the United States was underwritten by robber-baron exploitation. 'Free for All' employs vintage photographs, archival and modern-day footage (book-return conveyor belts!), animation (not a good idea), even artwork by the painter Jacob Lawrence. Young patrons at the self-checkout at the Presidio branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Lucie Faulknor There are also talking-head interviews. Some of the interviewees are well known, such as Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Harvard historian Jill Lepore. Others aren't. One of the pleasures 'Free for All' has to offer is making the acquaintance of Timmins, who works in the rural community of Seymour, sees her job as 'throwing a party every day.' Among the partygoers are a family with 14 kids who are being home-schooled. They use the library a lot . That family is a reminder of the diversity (uh-oh, that word) of library patrons. They include home schoolers, computer users who don't have online access at home, immigrants taking English-language courses, homeless people keeping out of the cold. 'What I'm doing now as a librarian is a bit like being a social worker,' a San Francisco librarian says. Advertisement There's so much in the documentary to like — and a fair amount not to. Logsdon braids together her family history and personal experiences with the larger narrative. It's an unnecessary attempt to enliven and humanize a story that's already plenty lively and humane. The result comes across as, at best, self-indulgent, and, at worst, distracting. A score that's alternately chirpy and goopy doesn't help. Perhaps it's fitting that 'Free for All' offers a few causes for complaint. In so doing, it reflects its subject — and the double meaning of that title. Some of it will make you proud and feel inspired. Some of it will make you angry. Sometimes it may even make you tear up. Most of all, maybe, it'll make you glad you have a library card. Wait, you do have a library card, don't you — and if you don't, why not? Mark Feeney is a Globe arts writer . Mark Feeney can be reached at
