Hope Baugh, Carmel Clay Public Library (CCPL) young adult services manager and sponsor of the CCPL Teen Library Council (TLC), died on Sept. 20 after serving at the library for 16 years. However, according to those who knew her, Baugh’s legacy continues to live on.

Jordan Barker, TLC member and junior, said during her time at the CCPL, Baugh greatly expanded the TLC and crafted an environment for people to come together and appreciate their shared love of reading.

“I don’t think the young adults’ area of the library would have been half as successful as it is now and the TLC wouldn’t have had half as many members or as popular of events without her because she was just so excited about everything we did and about learning and reading,” Barker said. “She really shaped the library and community to be happier and so much more loving and accepting than it was before we had her.”

According to Allison Earnhardt, TLC social officer and senior, Baugh’s love for students was contagious and had far-reaching impacts throughout the community.

“She had this way of believing the best in people,” Earnhardt said. “She built this community at the TLC where everyone can really express their ideas, their opinions on books and their opinions on other things in a free forum, like a little community here.”

In addition to her love for the students, Barker said Baugh inspired and pushed the TLC to greater heights, while teaching the students many unforgettable lessons about life.

“She made everyone super hopeful and full of joy because she had so much passion about what she was doing. It really made us believe that we could do anything and that really left a mark on all of us because we could do things that you wouldn’t think would be possible for a bunch of teenagers meeting at a library once a month,” Barker said. “I think that’s why everything with TLC is the way it is today.”

Jamie Beckman, CCPL young adult librarian, said the TLC is dedicated to Baugh this year and various projects will be created to honor her and the impact she had on the students.

“The library’s going to start a memorial fund for her,” Beckman said. “Hope is also, besides being a lover of the theater, a storyteller, so they’re going to try and do an annual storytelling event in her name each year where they hire an actual storyteller to come in her honor.”

Both Barker and Earnhardt said the impact that Baugh had on them will never cease and her legacy will continue to live on in the CCPL and at the TLC, even when she is not here.

“I know that there are plenty of people who have graduated from the TLC who are definitely better people because of their interactions and experiences knowing Hope,” Barker said. “As for the TLC, the young adults department and everyone who knew her, I think we’re all just going to try our best to keep what she loved alive, see what we can do to preserve her memory and the way that she would have wanted things and just make the library and everything she loved the best we possibly can.

“I think all of us are going to have a little hope in the back of our minds when things get rough that will be there to remind us that things will always be okay.”