Library aide Cindy Sears plans to retire at the end of the 2015-2016 school year after 15 years at Algonquin.

“I was a stay-at-home mom, and then I started volunteering in the schools when my kids were in them,” Sears said. “I never really aspired to be a full time worker, so I have always been lucky to have a job in the school.”

Sears has many plans for her future post-retirement.

“I am very fortunate that I still have both my parents, so I’m looking forward to spending more time with them because they’re both going to be 90,” Sears said.

“The other end is that I have five grandchildren in North Carolina, so I want to be able to travel and see them.”

Sears’ presence in the library has left a positive impact on those within the Algonquin community.

“She’s that smiling face, that shoulder you can cry on when you need it,” librarian Michelle Rehill said. “She’s the go-to person; she has everyone’s back.”

Sears is most memorable for her ability to work well with the students.

“She’s the one who keeps track of the kids,” Rehill said. “She knows who does sports and who does what kinds of activities, it’s crazy.”

“I’m always trying to give the kids the benefit of the doubt,” Sears said. “Sometimes they just need to go to the library for a break [or] they broke the rules, but I let them stay because I felt like that’s what they needed at the time.”

Sears’ main priority as a library aide has been checking students in and out, welcoming classes, and dealing with teacher requests for classrooms or computers.

“[For the past two years] she’s been going through the library collection and pulling things she thinks might be ready to be tossed out, replaced, or kept,” Rehill said. “The system we use for our online card catalog doesn’t like some of our barcode numbers [because] they changed the software, so we decided the only way to fix it is to re-barcode the collection. That’s kind of an above-and-beyond requirement of her job.”

Sears’ replacement is yet to be determined.

“We had some applicants we interviewed, and it was a tough decision to make because the candidates brought very different sets of skills to the table,” Rehill said.

“So we’ve gone through the process and now we have to wait for approval. The Superintendent will be letting us know about that.”

“I want to know [who her replacement is] because if you sit three feet from each other all day long, then she knows things about my family, and I know things about her family,” library aide Joann Amberson said. “I’m going to miss being able to have someone that I can talk to.”

The presence of a new face in the library will take some time to adjust to.

“I’m not concerned so much with the fact that there’s going to be a new person, but I’m afraid of what knowledge Mrs. Sears is going to take away with her,” Rehill said. “When the new person comes in, I’m going to sit there and say ‘I don’t know how she did that.’”

Overall, Sears is content with what she has accomplished, but is ready to embrace the future.

“I just hope I made an impact on the students,” Sears said. “I would like to leave [Algonquin] thinking I made a difference in some kids’ lives, and someday down the road they’ll say ‘Oh, Mrs. Sears, she was alright.’”