Wick Thomas—musician, librarian, activist, and GLBTRT member—has been named one of Library Journal’s 2014 “Movers and Shakers.” For 13 years LJ has profiled “50 or more up-and-coming individuals from around the world who are innovative, creative, and making a difference” in its March 15 issue. It’s not the first notice of Thomas: he won a Creating Change award from the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce and was named Best Activist in Missouri twice by the KC alternative newspaper Pitch Weekly. One of his achievements is his work with young library users who wrote and published Unheard Voices, a teen literary and art zine. Hundreds of copies of last summer’s first edition, featuring work of about 30 teenagers, were distributed to schools and libraries. The group plans on an annual edition. More about Thomas is in the LJ article and in GLBT News first “people profile.”
Recently Thomas hit national news when he moderated a Kansas City-area spelling bee that ran out of words and had to reschedule two weeks later. The run-off between seventh-grader Kush Sharma and fifth-grader Sophia Hoffman went on another 29 rounds before Hoffman was stumped by the word “stifling.” Sharma’s winning word was “definition.”
Kudos to him!