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Mathews Memorial Library, Mathews, Virginia

Left to right: Mary Chute, Acting Director, Institute of Museum and Library Services; Bette Dillehay, Mathews Memorial Library Director; South Korean immigrant and adult literacy student Chong Degge; First Lady Laura Bush. Photo by Steven E. Purcell. Click image for a larger version.

The Mathews Memorial Library in Mathews, Virginia, sees its role as central to creating a thriving community, and area residents have taken notice. The library partners with schools and the local historical center on programs that make it a hub of lifelong learning and enrichment. Despite its small size, the library has played a big part in developing a population of readers with strong literacy and computer literacy skills. And it has created new audiences with programs on music, oral history, and local history that forge connections between the area’s past, present, and future.

Chong Degges is a South Korean immigrant who, with the help of English literacy training offered at the Mathews Memorial Library, is striving toward her goal of a college degree. She will accept the award alongside Mathews Memorial Library Director Bette Dillehay and Mathews County Memorial Library Board of Trustees Chairman Joseph Kopp.

Biographies of Participants

Chong Degges, South Korean Immigrant and Adult Literacy Student
When Chong Degges immigrated to the United States in 1980, she arrived with a sixth-grade education. Growing up as the oldest of eight children in a South Korean farming community, she had been expected to forgo her education to help support her family. After arriving in America, Ms. Degges succeeded in establishing an embroidery shop that she owned for 14 years. When health issues forced her to sell the business she loved, she knew she had come to another crossroads in her life. She decided to focus on a life-long dream of furthering her education. With much trepidation, Ms. Degges walked into the Mathews Memorial Library to inquire about literacy tutoring. She has worked hard, pushed by her tutor and motivated by her enthusiasm for learning. In less than a year, she is well on her way to her GED exams. When she has her diploma in hand she will begin taking classes at the local community college

Bette Dillehay, Director of Mathews Memorial Library
Bette Dillehay returned to her hometown of Mathews County, Virginia, in February, 2002, to accept the position of Library Director. The small town of Mathews had been her home from birth to adulthood when she left to go to Richmond, Virginia, to attend Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University). Majoring in history and philosophy, she graduated cum laude in 1970. She also holds a Master of Public Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University received in 1997 and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of South Carolina granted in 2005. Ms. Dillehay served as librarian at A. H. Robins, a pharmaceutical company, until 1988, when she accepted the position of State Data Administrator with the Commonwealth of Virginia. In 1997 she became the Director of Virginia’s Y2K initiative and, in 2000, Governor Jim Gilmore appointed her Deputy Secretary of Technology. Bette is married to John R. Dillehay and has one daughter, Valerie Hubbard, and two grandchildren, Matthews Lewis and Ellen Virginia Hubbard, all of whom reside in Richmond, Virginia.

Joseph Kopp, Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Joseph Kopp, Chairman of the Mathews County Memorial Library Board of Trustees, has been recently reappointed by the Mathews County Board of Supervisors to serve his second four-year term as a board member. Besides being an avid reader his entire life and a collector of books and publications with an emphasis on art, architecture, and 18th and 19th century American history, he has served as President and member of the Mt. Lebanon Public Library Board of Trustees, and on the Board of the Friends of the Wilmington, Delaware Public Library. He also served four years as an elected member of Mt. Lebanon, PA, City Council. Professionally, Mr. Kopp retired in 2000 as Director of the Wilmington, DE, Office of the U. S. Small Business Administration. He had previously served as District Director of the Pittsburgh, PA District of the SBA; Vice-President and General Manager of a Pittsburgh-based steel equipment supplier; and as a member of the staff of a large CPA firm in New York City. He holds a BS Degree in Economics from Penn State University and has attended New York University Graduate School of Business Administration. He is a Korean-era veteran of the U.S. Air Force.