Patch Gets To Know Juanita Henegar

MARIETTA, OH — For a couple more days, Juanita Henegar is the law librarian for the Washington County Courthouse. She’s going to be stepping down from her position on June 20 after nearly 24-years of diligent work.

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Henegar is hanging up her librarian glasses and officially retiring. “I just felt it was time, I’m getting old.” She says she plans on visiting her grandchildren more, gardening, and taking care of things around the house. “Visiting friends and traveling.” She said turning 65 and starting to see friends pass away put things into perspective. “I just decided maybe I should just do some things I like to do.”

Henegar is a Mariettan now, having lived here since 1975, but she’s originally from Oklahoma. She has a good reason for ending up here, her husband is from here. But as the years have gone on, this place has grown on her. “You get used to freezing when you should be warm, but the climate’s changing, Oklahoma is a lot colder now than it used to be.”

She went to Washington State Community College back when it was where the Career Center is now. “It was called Washington Technical College then.” She learned how to program computers there.

She was uniquely qualified to be the law librarian, especially in the late 90s to early 00s, she had been educated and worked as a computer programmer. “I had gotten a little bit burned out from that. So I took a break.” Henegar had been a traveling programmer, and she would go out, code for a week at a time, under deadline pressure. “It was a tough job, and I had little children.”

So she quit being a computer programmer, went home to focus on raising her kids. “Then I saw this job was open in the paper and I thought, oh, it’s part-time, I can be home in time for my kids’ games.” She had taken some law classes in college and was a librarian when she was in high school. So she applied in 1997 and got the job. “It was what I was looking for at the time, it was quiet, it could keep me busy.”

Henegar said she was glad she came across this position. “I loved it.” She’s now helping find her replacement. “We’re getting some resumes in. I’ve been retiring for a year and a half. I was supposed to retire earlier than Covid came around.”

One thing that’s struck her over the years is how much things have changed. “In the way, things are done.” There was a time early on in Henegar’s career where books were the hot item at the library, but the internet changed that. “Back when the networks were young I had to teach people how to use computers. Now everyone pretty much knows how to do it.”

Henegar says it still amazes her that people don’t know the law library exists. “There is so much knowledge in this library that people don’t even realize we have.” She says regular people have access to the law library and their conference rooms. “People don’t have access to these books, even online without having to pay for them.” She says it’s a great place for people doing legal research. “I’ve had people spend weeks in here doing research.” She said she’s seen all sorts of people in there doing research for court cases, environmental cases, etc. And they’re there to help facilitate that.

She never planned on working at the courthouse this long, she came out of curiosity more than anything but stayed because she truly enjoyed it. “I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed solving problems and learning a lot of new things. It was an enjoyment.” She’s open to coming back occasionally, “If they need help.”

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