Alice A. Sturzl has lived many lives within the Wisconsin library community, devoting her time and talents to library service and leadership as a school librarian, a library trustee, an active member of WLA and numerous other professional organizations, and a dedicated public servant. She was honored with a 2005 WLA Special Services Award, as 2007 WLA/DEMCO Librarian of the Year, and 2015 WLA Trustee of the Year. She was elected 1997 WLA President and provided additional leadership to the school and trustee divisions as well as the WLA Foundation and numerous committees over four decades.
Alice was employed nearly four decades as library media specialist for the Laona School District. She officially retired in 2011 yet continued to serve as a substitute librarian at the Edith Evans Community Library that is co-located with school library services inside the Laona High School. The successful joint operation depends mightily upon the collegial coexistence of the two librarians along with their ability to bridge political relationships, policies and budgeting between the school and library boards. Alice not only mastered this challenging environment, but its unique perspective also informed her prodigious contributions to both school and public library advancement on a county, regional and statewide level.
By stepping outside her comfort zone to connect her corner of Wisconsin to the statewide multitype librarian network, Alice served as both a conduit and an advocate for greater communication and collaboration. She brought a depth of experience across multiple levels to every meeting she attended, mentoring others at the table, taking on new challenges and providing valuable insights from a statewide perspective. And she accomplished all this with a humility and devotion that also won support within ever widening circles for the libraries, resources, and services that she, her professional colleagues and her fellow library trustees held in trust for residents of the communities they represented.