In celebration of National Friends of the Library week, our Friends of the GCPL are sponsoring a Kentucky Humanities Chautauqua performance.

Called "the stubbornest woman" in Kentucky, Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd was born near Boston. Her way with words led to a career as a journalist, and later, as the editor of the first all-female newspaper staff in America.

Health problems forced Alice at age 40 to move to a warmer climate. She packed up her typewriter and headed by horse and buggy to the mountains of Kentucky. Acceptance from the people of Eastern Kentucky came slowly. Yet, Alice stayed and showed the good one person can do. She wanted to educate Appalachian children through college at little or no cost to them. Alice and her friend June Buchanan started Caney Junior College (later renamed Alice Lloyd College). Her journey included a gunshot scare, an invitation to the White House during Herbert Hoover's term, a Hollywood television appearance, a major story in Reader's Digest, and many mountain miracles.