After 18 years as the Librarian at the Reid Thompson Public Library, Rose Ward is retiring.

During a celebration tea Thursday in Humboldt at the branch on Main Street, she looked back on the near two decades.

"I think I won the lottery," she laughed when asked about how it all started. "20 years ago, even earlier than that my husband and I drove through Humboldt and I looked at the building and I said, boy it would sure be nice to work there someday."

Originally from central Manitoba, she and her husband relocated to Viscount and she moved to Humboldt and took the position after his passing. She went "back to school" at the age of 42 to get her education.

She will work her last day at the library on January 4th.

"I'm going to miss the public, oh I am going to miss the people here, there is a great bunch of people that uses the library and I'm going to really miss them. I am going to miss all the new books because every time we have a mail run it's like Christmas so we always have these new books, I'm going to miss that. I'm going to miss the little people that come in for story time and other craft programs."

She estimated that they hosted over 100 prominent authors for readings among likely thousands of daily programs over her near two decades.

You can hear more from Ward below in her in her full interview.