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415 Spruce Ave
Ketchum, ID 83340 United States Get Directions
(208) 726-3493
https://comlib.org/
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Skis, Shovels, and Stories: History of the Sun Valley Ski Patrol in the 1960s with Dave Laster

The Community Library

Hot off the presses, Dave Laster has just published a book on the history of Sun Valley's Ski Patrol during the 1960s and will talk about his experiences here in Sun Valley teaching and patrolling. Laster was raised in Seattle and educated as a historian and geographer in Bellingham, before joining the Sun Valley ski patrol in the early 1960s. In addition to his time on the ski patrol, he also taught with Sigi’s ski school, worked the trail crew, was a bellhop at the Sun Valley lodge, and ran the Opera House. He was an active mountaineer, drawn by both the Cascades and the Sawtooths. He and his wife Claudia later taught high school for the military dependent schools in Germany and Italy, before retiring back to Bellingham. He returns to Sun Valley each year with the Seattle-based Ancient Skiers group. This program will be livestreamed and available to watch later. Go to event link watch online live or after the event, the recording will be posted on the Event Archive button on The Community Library's website.

Free
Event Series Nature Journaling

Nature Journaling

The Community Library

An intimate journey into the sketchbook world and how drawing can offer a moment of stillness and peace within an often chaotic world. Led by artist Leslie Rego. Thursdays, December 5-19 and January 16-23 (five Thursdays). Registration required. This workshop series offers a welcoming and supportive space for people interested in drawing the natural world. The focus will be on nature journaling. Prompts will be offered as well as guidance. Each session we will jump down a “rabbit hole” and study in depth one plant or landscape element or learn about different brushes, paints, papers, and other art supplies. A list of recommended supplies will be sent to registered participants. Leslie Rego has drawn in journals for years. She carries sketchbooks and paints with her while enjoying the national forest and will take time to draw and paint landscapes and flowers on her many hikes. Leslie wrote the "Sketchbook Hiking" article in The Weekly Sun for many years. She has artwork in private collections, The Sun Valley Lodge and around the world.

Event Series Beginning Knitting

Beginning Knitting

The Community Library

Bring your own needles and yarn, and come learn beginning knitting from master knitter and Sun Valley Needle Arts owner Patricia Lirk. Come learn to knit, ask questions and solve knitting mysteries, and meet others. Second and fourth mondays of the month. All skill levels welcome. Registration requested.

Winter Read Kickoff

The Community Library

To kick off the 2025 Winter Read of "Four Treasures of the Sky" by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, we'll be opening a new exhibit, enjoying light refreshments, and sharing how you can participate in this community-wide read! The Winter Read is a community-wide read and collaboration of The Community Library in Ketchum with the Hailey Public Library, Bellevue Public Library, and Stanley Community Library. Learn more at https://comlib.org/programs/winter-read-2025/

Event Series Wood River Writers’ Focused Writing Group

Wood River Writers’ Focused Writing Group

The Community Library

Saturdays, November 2 – April 5, from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm Co-work with a community of writers the first Saturday of each month for focused writing and craft discussions and connect to other writers from the Wood River Valley and beyond! All writing abilities and ages welcome. Join us in The Community Library’s Idaho Room, or online via Zoom. The Wood River Writers’ Groups are led by AJ Super, a local author with a trilogy of science fiction books published by a small traditional press. She is also a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Association (SFWA) member.

Healing: Our Path to Mental Well-Being with Thomas Insel

The Community Library

The last four decades have seen unprecedented progress in the science of mental illness, yet we have seen little progress in outcomes. At a population level, morbidity and mortality are increasing, not decreasing, for those with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe mood and anxiety disorders and other mental health and substance misuse conditions. How to explain this gap between science and social impact? This dialogue with the Blaine County community will address the crisis of care, with five major problems contributing: capacity, engagement, quality, accountability, and equity. Remarkably, while there is no magic bullet (or molecular target), there are solutions for each of these problems. Technology will help. But we need high touch as well as high tech. Most of all, we need to shift our model from a narrow medical “sick care” approach to a broader recovery “health and well-being” approach, by addressing the 3 P’s: people, place, and purpose. The challenges of mental illness and addiction have medical elements, but the solutions will need to include social, environmental, and political efforts if we are to bend the curves for morbidity and mortality. Presented in partnership with the St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation and the Blaine County’s Mental Well-Being Initiative. Moderated by the ...

Free

Book Club: “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating”

The Community Library

The Community Library Book Club is hosted the first Wednesday of every other month and led by a diverse range of library staff. Books cover all genres from new fiction to classics to nonfiction, young adult, graphic novels, and everything in between. February's selection is "The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating" by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. The discussion will be led by programs and education director Martha Williams. In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her encounter with a Neohelix albolabris—a common woodland snail. While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own place in the world. Intrigued by the snail’s molluscan anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, offering a candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small animal. This short book is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a ...

The Long Road: Building a Writer’s Life and Community

The Community Library

Books can take years to write, months to query, and from the point of sale to a publisher, another two years to publish. A story can take a year to write, another year to polish, six months to hear back about, and another six months to a year to come out in print or online. In those early years, how does one keep going when the horizon seems so indefinite? How do you know if you’re going in the right direction, how does one learn to edit themselves, and when do you know when a story is done? And how do you find your people along the way? Writing is long, but it doesn’t have to be lonely. Join us for a discussion with Jemimah Wei, current Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway House, on building a writing life and routine, seeking community, and persisting through the drafts. Jemimah Wei is the author of "The Original Daughter" (Doubleday Books, 2025). Born and raised in Singapore, she is now based between Singapore and the United States. She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and Felipe P. De Alba Fellow at Columbia University, where she earned her MFA. A recipient of awards ...

Free

“Bitter Creek” with Teow Lim Goh

The Community Library

In September of 1885, the Chinese coal miners who were brought into Wyoming as strikebreakers were ambushed and driven out of the town of Rock Springs at gunpoint by white coal miners. Teow Lim Goh's "Bitter Creek" revisits this dark episode—known today as the Rock Springs Massacre—revealing the stories beneath this violent, decade-long culmination of labor struggles and racial hostilities in the Union Pacific Coal Mines. Through the eyes of the struggling railroad workers, their families, and the corporation working them to the bone, Teow Lim Goh creates an ode to buried history that blends epic tradition with modern composition and astonishing empathy to ask the question, “What turns ordinary people into monsters?” This program is part of the 2025 Winter Read, a community-wide program. This year we're reading "Four Treasures of the Sky," by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, set in 19th century Idaho and whose main characters hear of the Rock Springs Massacre as they face their own threats of violence in the small mining town of Pierce. Books will be available for pre-order from Torrey House Press, which is publishing the book in May 2025. Teow Lim Goh is a poet and essayist who writes from the nexus of ...

Free

Immigration’s Role in the Wood River Valley

The Community Library

From the early days of mining and sheepherding, immigrants have been a core population in the Wood River Valley. Comprising more than 25% of our residents and more than 40% of students in our school district, the importance of this population continues to grow, but remains largely misunderstood. Come hear stories and insights about their experience, how they thrive, and contribute to our community. This is the third event in the "Giving Though" Learning Series, which is part of the "it's in our nature" campaign to promote the vital role generosity and nonprofits play in our community.

Free

The Light of a Hundred Fires: Chinese Experiences in Idaho’s Gold Rush Era

The Community Library

Chinese migrants were some of the first and most numerous participants in Idaho’s 19th century gold rushes. In mining communities across Idaho, Chinese residents often made up more than half of the local population and an even higher percentage of gold seekers. This presentation from Dr. Renae Campbell will focus on one such community, Southern Idaho’s Boise Basin, where a rich archaeological and historical record allows us to reconstruct what daily life was like for some of the thousands of Chinese individuals who, despite facing racial discrimination and an evolving array of exclusionary laws, established diverse lives and livelihoods during Idaho’s gold rush era. This program is part of the 2025 Winter Read. Renae Campbell is a historical archaeologist and the Director of the University of Idaho’s Asian American Comparative Collection (AACC), a non-profit facility dedicated to promoting research on Asian American heritage and material culture. Renae specializes in Chinese and Japanese diaspora archaeology, archaeologies of race and gender, and the history of the rural American West. In 2016, she created the Historical Japanese Ceramic Comparative Collection (www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/hjccc/), one of the first online resources for identifying archaeological Japanese ceramics. Her 2023 dissertation, The Once Bustling Basin: A Historical Archaeology of ...

Free

2025 “Think Globally, Act Locally” Speaker Series – Colin Thorne – “Restoring the Dignity of Our Rivers”

The Community Library

Restoring the Dignity of Our Rivers A talk with Colin Thorne, Emeritus Professor and Chair of Physical Geography at the University of Nottingham, UK, and River Scientist at Wolf Water Resources in Oregon. This is a free event but registration is required. In partnership between The Community Library and Wood River Land Trust as part of the annual "Think Globally, Act Locally" Speaker Series. Join us for series events on January 15, February 19, and March 11.

Free

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