Villain Book Hater Julie Frona challenges the Super Heroes to throw the boulder as far as they could. They did such a good job the boulder started to fall apart.

Youthful ‘Super Heroes’ save the Greenville Library
By Bob Robinson

GREENVILLE – “Attention Super Heroes… a villain has been spotted moving around in the library. He’s trying to take over the movie room and has a bomb. Please apprehend him, disarm the bomb and take him to jail.”

Twenty “Super Hero” youngsters, ranging in age from about five to nine, ran out of the kids’ activity area to search for the villain upstairs. In less than a minute, one “Hero” was walking with a “bomb” in his hands, while a half dozen others were escorting Reuben “Lex Luther” Kennett in handcuffs downstairs to the jail.

“Is the bomb disarmed,” asked the librarian on the intercom?”

“Yes!” they yelled.

Luther was kept locked up until he promised not to do anything bad again.

The event was cooked up by Kennett and Julie Frona, Library staff members, and held Nov. 16 as one of the opportunities to get area young people involved in their local library.

On four occasions the Super Heroes were challenged to capture a different villain attempting to do harm to the library… in addition to Kennett and Frona, culprits were played by Devon Persons and Lauren Cline. They were doing bad things. Persons was taking movies without checking them out. Cline was caught hacking the computers. Frona was stealing books…

“Books are bad,” she kept saying. “No! Books are good,” the kids answered as they escorted her in handcuffs to the jail below.

Library Assistant Director Susi Halley was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had been tied up by Lex Luther before he went deep into the library to plant his “bomb.” It took the kids about 10 seconds to free her… then they went after the villain.

“These guys (Kennett and Frona) can get really creative when they want to,” Halley said. “They spent a lot of time putting this together.”

The Greenville Library Super Heroes event started out with “strong man” contests… each child threw a boulder as far as possible.

“Wow! One hundred fifty centimeters,” Frona said. Some managed to exceed 600 ‘centimeters’, nearly the length of the room.

As the paper mache boulder started falling apart, she exclaimed “You’re breaking the boulder… you’re so strong!”

A huge Bar-Bell was handed around for the heroes to show off their strength… it eventually started coming apart as well.

“How far can you jump?” Frona asked. “That’s a Super Hero thing, too.” Some kids jumped; others jumped a little... a bunch of times.

There was a lot of laughter, and not only from the kids.

Parents were grinning and one of the villains, Persons, couldn’t stop laughing. He was dressed as “Two-Face.” Was he having fun?

“Yes!!” He laughed again. “I’m glad they invited me. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday.” His costume? A half-hour for makeup and two suits from Goodwill ripped in half then the separate pieces sewn together.

One dad said it was great seeing kids interact like that.

“And it’s one time you don’t have to tell them to be quiet in the library,” he added, grinning.

The children were given an opportunity to test their X-Ray vision by reaching into a box, feeling the items and guessing what they were. Finally, Frona announced all the criminals have been caught.

“It’s time for snacks and a movie!”

One youngster, Kaden Harrison, was eating his snacks in the third floor movie room. He’d shed his “Iron Man” outfit and settled in with mom and dad to watch the movie. Did he have fun?