A small town in Navarro County opened a needed library last month. Before William Marsh Rice Public Library in Rice opened, there was nowhere in the community for children to check out books.
Amparito Ramirez, a middle school librarian and Rice resident, started the process by sending Rice Mayor J. Nicole Jackson an email in October 2021. Ramirez said Johnson agreed with her that the town should start a library, and they immediately began working.
“Just having a place for the kids was my main goal, and having reading at the forefront to let them know that it is important. That it is something that’s going to advance you in life,” Ramirez said.
The town celebrated the opening of the William Marsh Rice Public Library at the town hall, where it will be located, with several events, including a ribbon cutting.
William Marsh Rice, the library and the town’s namesake, donated the land for a school, a church, and the cemetery for the small community.
Ramirez started the library’s collection with nearly 300 of her own books, but she said there had been an outpouring of generosity from across North Texas in the form of book and money donations from neighbors in Rice. The Ennis Library and Friends of the Arlington Library have also donated books to the library.
Though she is hopeful for the future because of the widespread participation in the effort, Ramirez said she recognizes the library has much further to go.
Among the many resources Ramirez hopes to offer are computers, which she said are a necessity.
“This world is technology-driven,” Ramirez said, “and you need a computer now to do an interview. You need a computer, or you need to print things out every day. So if our community doesn’t have access to that at home, I want to be that place that they can go to so they don’t have to drive 30 minutes.”
Rice ISD boasts an impressively high graduation rate for Texas. A four-year longitudinal study on the class of 2020 indicated that 97% of district students graduated high school on time, easily topping the statewide rate for the class of 2020 — which sat at 90.3% — and dwarfing Dallas ISD’s unimpressive 82.8%.