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Tye Preston Memorial Library (TPML) serves the informational, recreational, and educational needs of the Canyon Lake Community Library District in Central Texas. In March 2025, TPML received a Humanities Texas mini-grant to host the traveling exhibition A Time Before Texas. Members of our grants team recently spoke with Adult Services Coordinator Nicky Pownall to learn more about the library's grant-funded programming and other community resources.
Interview with Adult Services Coordinator Nicky Pownall
The library recently received a mini-grant to rent the Humanities Texas traveling exhibition A Time Before Texas. Can you tell us how that went and what programming you offered alongside it?
We've hosted two traveling exhibitions from Humanities Texas. The first—Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy—was about a year prior [to March]. Both times the exhibitions have been awesome. We display them in the gathering area right where you enter the library. For A Time Before Texas, we had the physical panels as well as the online exhibition accessible on a nearby computer, and it was so rewarding to see people come by and read about the history of the first human beings to live on the land we currently live on. Visitors could also learn that the sacred springs of nearby San Marcos are the oldest continuously inhabited location in North America, and the exhibition highlighted different groups in the area that continue to live on this land. The display was just wonderful for our patrons to learn about the history we all share.
The grant funding also supported a variety of programs. The exhibition comes with a companion card game called "A Year of Survival". We had a couple of sessions of that game, and it was really fun. We had multiple classes about the archaeological history and significance of the inscribed stones that accompanied the display, and then we made our own renditions of them.
Our keynote for the whole series was a presentation by Mario Garza, founder of the Indigenous Cultures Institute [a San Marcos organization dedicated to preserving the cultures of Native Americans indigenous to Texas and northern Mexico]. He gave a presentation about the contributions of Native Americans stretching across time and space in the Americas. It was a wonderful interactive session with him. He was also able to inform patrons about different festivals and events, as well as issues pertaining to Native groups, such as repatriation and reburial.
What is something unique or special about the library?
The very first thing that comes to mind is how unique and wonderful our resources are, being that we're a rural community library district. We're in the country, in Canyon Lake, and we have some special things here that might be a bit harder to find at other locations. We have an extensive butterfly garden filled with native Texas plants, all pollinator-friendly. It's gorgeous just walking around it. We also have an observatory on our library property, so we host monthly astronomy nights with the New Braunfels astronomy club. We bring out a bunch of different telescopes for the public to come and freely enjoy at night under the stars.
Nearby, we have an apiary, so we have bees on the property, and I believe we are up to four beehives. We work with our local beekeeping group to maintain our bees and provide programs about them. They also do programs like honey extraction parties and provide information about beekeeping and the properties of honey. Those are some of my favorite things that make us unique, because they show that we are very incorporated into nature and the Hill Country.
Before we wrap up, can you share with our readers a book you are currently enjoying?
Right now, I am in the middle of the book The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez. The protagonist is an author who buys land in the Dominican Republic to have a physical cemetery for the stories that she was never able to fully develop. Alvarez is a phenomenal storyteller; the book takes you through time and space. I'm listening to the audiobook right now, and the narrator is great. It's a well-paced, well-narrated book.