This week I want to thank two great guys who helped the Clark County Public Library get March’s Women’s History Month display started.

In the last column I mentioned I was looking for information about and pictures by Kate Pendleton, a well known and popular Winchester artist. Last Tuesday, Will Hodgkin brought in a splendid portrait Kate Pendleton did of his mother, Callie Gay Hodgkin. Will is, rightfully, proud of the portrait.

Mrs. Hodgkin’s eyes shine with intelligence and curiosity while the shape of her mouth suggests the quiet amusement that suits intelligence and curiosity most. The portrait is in the Reference Department, part of the Women’s History month display.

When Will left, he said he’d see if he could find any other paintings by Kate Pendleton. Not 10 minutes later, like a genii, he returned with a watercolor landscape of the Winchester Country Club that shows two women playing over a sand trap to a green in the distance. It’s a jolly painting. The woman who has just played seems to have left the ground, whether jumping with joy or frustration is up to the imagination of the viewer. This picture will also be on display in the reference department during March.

Thursday, February 23, I was driving to Frankfort with Clark County’s memory, Harry Enoch, and mentioned I was looking for a picture of Jennie Bibbs Didlick, the woman known as the Rosa Parks of Winchester because of the lawsuit she won against the Lexington-Winchester Transit authority in the 1940s. I was more delighted than surprised when Harry replied, “I have a picture of her.” Her picture is in the Women’s History display in Reference.

Last Monday I went to collect some Winchester stories from the lunchtime crowd at the Generation Center. I had a wonderful time and met a lot of truly beautiful people. As I was leaving, I walked through the hallway with the group going out to board the Kentucky Foothills buses that take them home. In the hallway there was a gentleman on oxygen in a wheelchair. One of the women who was near to door turned around to look back down the hallway while she waited and when she did, she saw the man in the wheelchair.

She left her place in line, came back to the man, and took a plastic mesh bag with two oranges in it out of her purse.  “Here,” she said, gently pushing the oranges into the crook of his left elbow, “these will make you feel better.”

Right there the world became a brighter place. That’s Women’s History. I’m going back next Monday to get her picture.

Take time to bring in pictures of women from Clark County who had a positive impact on people around them: mothers, grandmothers, sisters, friends. Jenny Didlick, Callie Hodgkin, Kate Pendleton and the lady at the Generation Center represent women’s private, day-to-day strength and integrity, joy and inspiration. Pictures of women like them remind us of that, remind us we can be like them. They deserve our respect and attention.

Other programs this week?

— Tuesday, 10 a.m., Internet 1.

— Tuesday, 6:30 p.m., Novels at night discusses “truly, Madly, Guilty,” by Lynn Moriarty.

— Wednesday, 2 p.m., KY Picture Show presents Gene Kelly’s splash hit.

— Wednesday, 7 p.m., Trivia at the Engine House Deli.

— Friday, 10 a.m., Write local.

— Saturday, March 11, Outside the Lines adult Coloring. Mary Farmer, a connoisseur of coloring, tells me it puts a person in her own perfect happy space.  Great place to spend Saturday.