There are some people whose names come to mind in Bridgeport when you mention something. For instance, if you mention Bridgeport football, chances are good someone is going to think of Wayne Jamison.

 

Things like that just do not happen. That is something earned.

 

Mention the Bridgeport Public Library and one name comes to mind – Sharon Saye. Let me assure you, that title is also earned. She’s not just the Wayne Jamison of library directors. She is actually the Sharon Saye of library directors.

 

I do not bring this up simply as a pat on the back for service to the community, which certainly would be merited. I bring it up because on March 27, 2022, Sharon Saye will be celebrating her 50^th year of running the library that currently serves Bridgeport and people well beyond.

 

I bring it up for a date less than a week later – March 31, 2022. On that day, Sharon Saye will end her 50-year career, plus a few days with the city.

 

Although those close to her knew as did city administration and her staff, her first public acknowledgement of the situation was Monday at the Bridgeport City Council meeting. During her annual department head report she casually ended it by saying she was calling it a career.

 

For those who know her, it is not surprising. For those who do not, understand the person going into the sunset of retirement is one of the most loyal employees and community leaders Bridgeport has seen for, well, half a century.

 

This walking encyclopedia of Bridgeport Library and city knowledge, pun intended, has told me a few times she planned on working for at least 50 years. Her body gave her a little bit of a shove as the time neared.

 

“I tore the meniscus in my right knee after favoring it because my left knee has arthritis and I’ve been limping around. I’ve told people my brain is still good, but my knees are mush,” said Saye. “Thank goodness I no longer work at the (Benedum) Civic Center anymore. Those steps would have retired me long ago.”

 

That is where it all began, at the Benedum Civic Center. Many of us a bit older can easily recall that the library used to be located on the third floor there. Saye took over there on March 27, 1972.

 

“I was hired as the librarian and somewhere along the line they threw in the title of director,” said Saye. “Things have certainly changed.”

 

Back in 1972, she worked with two full-time employees and two part-time employees at the Civic Center. Today, in what she still fondly calls the new library on Johnson Avenue, she has a 16-person staff that includes seven full-time workers.

 

In 1972, there were 60,000 books covering 2,800 square feet. Today, in the “new” facility, there are 130,000 books and countless other materials in 15,000 square feet.

 

“When I got there in 1972, it was so small, and the shelves were half empty. I guess my fate at both locations was to fill up library shelves,” Saye said with a laugh. “Even that old building changed before and during my time there. A lot of people don’t know the third floor had an apartment with a kitchen and everything. I guess the thought was initially the director of the Civic Center would want to live there.”

 

Ironically, this city employee was not hired by the city as much as inherited. She told me the Benedum Civic Center was ran at that time by a Bridgeport Recreation Committee, of which I had no idea like the apartment, which oversaw the Civic Center and the library.

 

“It was also mostly funded by the Benedum Foundation,” she said. “Sometime in 1973 or ’74, the city decided to charge the Recreation Commission to fund the pool and they quit en masse. The city took it over just like that, which wasn’t really a problem because the city was essentially paying us.”

 

For the next two decades the library went from a dusty third floor at the Civic Center to a neat as possible hub of activity. Eventually, it outgrew its confines.

 

“We were so cramped we would loan books to the schools, to the Clarksburg library, pile them on top of shelves and even give some away,” she said. “That was where we were at.”

 

That all changed in the early 1990s as the Bridgeport Library Board decided to try and act. The action took place in the form of the late Leonard Timms, Sr., according to Saye.

 

“He came to a board meeting and said he found us a building, which was the former All-State Insurance building on Johnson Avenue,” said Saye. “We eventually took a tour and when you first went in, where the circulation desk is today, there were offices, so it didn’t seem like a good fit. Then, you went to the center part of the building and there was just so much open space. It seemed like a perfect fit.”

 

Perfect fit maybe. Financial fit, not so much.

 

“It boiled down that those involved with the library needed to raise $1.3 million to back up the bonds the city would issue to acquire it,” said Saye. “We raised $1.3 million in three months over the winter.”

 

The amazing thing was not the fact that it was raised so quickly, which Saye does not discount. Rather, it was how it was raised.

 

“We were told it would be large corporations donating and state grants. Instead, we went out and asked people to donate $1,000 over five years, or $200 a year, and it worked,” said Saye. “We had so many from Bridgeport, even some outside the city, to make the pledge. Even more amazing only a few of those donors defaulted, and most of them were people who moved and didn’t finish their payments.”

 

That was in 1994. In 2014, a big balloon payment was paid off. The city officially owned the library building.

 

“I honestly think people feel so strongly about this library in ways other cities don’t because they are invested through their own dollars. We bought this library with the community’s help under what many would have thought were impossible odds,” said Saye. “As relieved as that made all of us, there was still the move.”

 

While not easy, Saye and those closely involved with the library already had the resource to make it happen that made the purchase happen – the community.

 

“We actually had 20,000 books checked out and allowed people to hold them until we were at our new location so that was less items needing moved,” said Saye. “The great thing was every day at 5 p.m. we would have boxes of books primarily stacked in front of the Civic Center and trucks would show up, load them, and drive them to the Johnson Avenue building. These were just residents doing it, and they moved them all. It was wonderful.”

 

To this day, Saye still considers her job wonderful. With that in mind, she still knows it’s time.

 

“Fifty years is enough,” she said.

 

Oddly, when March 31 rolls around, she’ll leave like nearly every staff member she’s had at her present building will have done – in her vehicle. That was not the case when she started.

 

“I still live on Davis Street, and I walked to work at the Civic Center for years. I had a Chevelle that sat parked most of the time since it never got used,” she laughed. “From a location standpoint, the Civic Center was perfect in the downtown and with the Dairy Queen across the street at the time. As much as I loved that, with all the crowding there at the end, this building was such a breath of fresh air.”

 

There have been plenty of changes in the new building. The facility has witnessed growth in digital areas as the internet age arrived and has remained. Now, it is a hard back book, an audio book, an E-book, and E-Audio book and streaming services among others.

 

The new building has also seen change. More than once, there have been tens of thousands in renovations and additions.

 

The additional space allowed for new programs where the community could come. From chess groups to therapy dogs reading with kids, there was almost always an event – pre-COVID-19 – at the library. Even that is changing again.

 

“COVID floored so many programs, but we were set up digitally and the electronic services we had in place did well,” said Saye. “Things are getting better, and numbers are trickling up. We’re, right now, still trying to avoid bigger programs, but we hope to get there sooner rather than later.”

 

As for when that happens, Saye will no longer have to worry about that. She is handing the reigns to Savanna Draper, who is already on board, which leaves one to wonder what a person who has spent five decades doing the same thing – rarely missing a day for any reason – will do with a sudden collection of free time.

 

“I’m doing nothing, really,” said Saye. “I do have 50 years of stuff accumulated, especially books, and I’m going to have to get rid of things. I’ve got some clutter, so I don’t think I’ll be bored anytime soon.”

 

And while leaving, she is still available. That should be good news for all involved in keeping the high standards of the library in place. No one knows more about it that Sharon Saye.

 

“If they need help, I’m a phone call away,” said Saye.

 

Of course, that is who they will call. If you have a question about the library, there is one name that comes to mind – Sharon Saye. One of the most  important figures in the city’s history has earned the standard, and the retirement.

 

Editor's Note: Top photo shows Sharon Saye sitting at her desk that appears to be chaos, but one in which she can locate anything she needs. Second photo shows Saye, left, back at the old Civic Center library. In the third photo, a $5,000 pledge is given to the library and shown in the photo from 1993, from left, are Alison Deem, Tom Teter, Susan Goodwin, Dr. Harry M. "Hank" Murray, Ron Michael with Huntington National Bank, Saye, and Edgar Hess. In the next photo, Murray is shown in late September, 1994 signing the bond documents that were issued for purchase of the building as the late City Manager Harold Weiler is in the background. The next photo shows the National Guard assisting with the move, while Saye is shown at her final strategic planning meeting on the far left in the bottom photo with Councilman Jon Griffith, right, and Finance Director Monica Musgrave.