© 2025 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

97-Year-Old Librarian Named Oldest Working Kansan

KCUR | By Frank Morris
Published November 25, 2002 at 11:12 AM CST
Martha Smith, of Vinland, is the librarian at Coal Creek Library. She has been the librarian off and on since she was in her early 20s.
Associated Press
Martha Smith, of Vinland, is the librarian at Coal Creek Library. She has been the librarian off and on since she was in her early 20s.

A 97-year-old woman is the oldest working Kansan. Martha Smith of Vinland, Kan. has been tending the Cole Creek Library for most of the last 67 years. Her great uncle helped found the library in 1859.
Community
Frank Morris
I’ve been at KCUR almost 30 years, working partly for NPR and splitting my time between local and national reporting. I work to bring extra attention to people in the Midwest, my home state of Kansas and of course Kansas City. What I love about this job is having a license to talk to interesting people and then crafting radio stories around their voices. It’s a big responsibility to uphold the truth of those stories while condensing them for lots of other people listening to the radio, and I take it seriously. Email me at frank@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @FrankNewsman.
See stories by Frank Morris
Stand up for the free press
No matter what happens in Washington D.C., Kansas City needs KCUR. And KCUR needs you.

Our ability to report local news — accurate, independent and paywall-free — depends on you. Donate now to support fact-based news.
Donate to KCUR