Everybody gets invited to her party.
The hostess, Lisa Wardeck-Huffer of Elizabethtown, doesn’t offer attendees cocktails or pigs in a blanket. She and her bookmobile deliver to everyone and anyone a few laughs, smiles and knowledge — and a passport to go anywhere they please through reading.
Since 1987, Lisa, 51, has been traveling throughout Hardin County in the bookmobile, a hostess who reads to children at day care centers, visits senior living facilities and chats up locals at community “pit stops” — library card holders of all ages.
On a typical day, she motors down U.S. 31 West in Hardin County, rock music blaring from the speakers while she makes as many as 12 stops a day. The avowed music lover calls Pearl Jam her favorite band, and it rates a tattoo, its name, on her right arm.
“People know I’m silly,” she said.
They also know her vivacious personality, her passion for reading and her knack for honing in on every visitor’s reading niche and offering spot-on recommendations for all. She collects books and downloads books from Barnes and Noble on her Nook.
“But why Book Mobile Librarian?” you ask.
The bookmobile has a long history in Hardin County, and many drivers have filled Lisa’s roll. In fact, Lisa trained three drivers before applying for the job full time.
But before all that, she lived a different life.
Lisa hails from Munfordville. She married Norman Wardeck, and 16 years later he died of lung cancer. They raised two sons, Paul, 27, and Trigg, 24. She married Todd Huffer, and they’ve been together for 11 years.
While raising Paul, Lisa spotted an ad in the local paper for a part-time job at the library. She spent many of her childhood years in a library close to her home and decided to pursue the job.
She got it.
“I’m one of the lucky ones,” she said. “I have my dream job now.”
