Name: Jane Ann Loftis

Position: Warren County Middle School librarian

Experience: Taught at Viola School until it closed, taught 3 years at Morrison, taught sixth-grade science at WCMS when it first opened, taught ELA for 5 years, now is the librarian of WCMS.

Fun Fact: She is the only WCMS employee who taught the year the school opened as a middle school. 

Q: Why did you go into the school system?

A: Loftis is a fourth-generation teacher with Joe Wooden, her father, teaching biology at WCHS. “Growing up, I was always playing school,” she said, “I had a chalkboard in my room. I would set up my dolls.” She said she would take leftover worksheets from her teachers and give them to her dolls while playing. “Teaching was encouraged in our home.”

Q: Why’d you turn to the library?

A: Loftis said she wanted to be a librarian and was waiting for an opening. “This reading level, I enjoy most. Middle school fiction,” She wanted a librarian job so when Syd Prater retired, she got her first library of choice at WCMS. “I plan on staying until retirement,” she said.

Q: What’s your favorite book series?

A: “Nothing touches Harry Potter.” 

She had been teaching a few years when the first one came out and loved it immediately. She said the characters are what she loves most. “I like the books better, but I do like the movies,” Loftis said. “For book lovers, they pick it apart. There are things in the books that are missing in movies.”

Q: What’s a favorite memory?

A: When she taught ELA, she had a classroom library, and she would often read the back cover and the first page of a book to try to get students interested. There was one student who hated reading, but she recommended a book with a character named “Soup.” She said that student approached her later and told her, “I kind of like that Soup book.”

Q: What’s the best part of working in the library?

A: “When you see students excited about something they’re reading.” Loftis said the reading level doesn’t matter, as long as the student is enjoying reading. “Students come up and say ‘Order the new book.’” She said opening a new box of book orders is like Christmas morning.

Q: What’s better? Classroom or library?

A: “Library,” she said. “We have a happy library. You don’t have to be quiet.” She said that they’re fortunate to have such a big library that it doesn’t feel like a library. She also said working with library assistant Lynn Bullen is a highlight. “We work well together, bounce ideas off each other.”

Bullen has been the assistant for 11 years and has worked with both Prater and Loftis. Bullen was touched by Loftis’s compliments saying, “I tell people I have the best job ever.” Bullen said she loves kids, and her ultimate goal is to make a difference.

Loftis also wanted to thank the office workers who are students who help run the library.