Library Division Manager Kenneth Yamashita said the event went well, with people coming up to library staff and thanking them for holding it. “I thought it was wonderful,” Ripon Branch Librarian Melinda Kopp said in the November 11 Modesto Bee. “I think everybody here was very supportive.”
Toward the end of the program, Slage took questions from the audience but told the crowd she would not answer queries from people who want to communicate with the dead, a stipulation she had agreed to even before the talk was canceled. Library Director Natalie Rencher had called off the September 17 lecture after many people, including Ripon Mayor Chuck Winn, questioned its appropriateness. However, the library rescheduled the lecture for November after consultation with the city council and members of the community.
Posted November 11, 2005.