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LIFE: The Great Challenge - by Royce B. McClure
- FIRST TO COMPLETE IN IDAHO, USA
- FIRST LIBRARY IN THE WORLD TO COMPLETE THE PUZZLE
June 26, 2008
Patrons of the Troy Public Library - Troy, Idaho, USA.
Assembled between December 17th 2007 and June 26th 2008.
Troy, Idaho Library,
Last night, Thursday, June 26 at 6:25pm:
5 children, all regular puzzlers,
each put a finger on the 23,999th piece of the world's largest jigsaw
puzzle and slid it into place:
Carissa Kruger
Bailey, Jamie & Seth Lunders, Ceilidh McElroy,
proud moms Ann McElroy and Sheila Lunders witnessed the placing of the last
piece.
Troy library patrons began the puzzle on December 17, 2007. It took us 192
calendar days and 131 actual puzzling days to complete the puzzle.
Sixty people put at least one piece in the puzzle. The youngest puzzlers
were Seth Lunders age 6 and Daniel Steadman age 8, both regulars at the
Troy library and regular puzzlers. The oldest puzzler was Ellis Anderson, a
Troy Friends director. He is also leading the gluing of the puzzle.
We had the raffle for the 4 puzzles that were donated. Everyone who had put
a piece in the puzzle and signed the log each had one chance at winning a
puzzle. All the puzzles were won by puzzlers who live out of Troy: Don
Steadman (Harvard, ID), Julie Redford and Tim Redford (Sandpoint, ID) and
C'nedra Thomas (Couer d'Alene, ID).
We had many people come from out of Troy to puzzle including our regular
puzzlers Leonard and Odessa Johnson from Moscow who regrettably had to
leave about an hour before the puzzle was complete.
All the regular puzzlers concur that the best part of puzzling was visiting
with our new puzzle friends on a regular basis. We will miss the regular
interaction and encourage the Troy library to have more programs that let
people come together and interact on a regular basis. It was particularly
nice that we had entire families and people of all ages involved in the
project. We will miss our out of town puzzling friends and hope we can have
programs to attract people from out of town to again be regular visitors to
the Troy library.
The puzzle will be glued and displayed in the children's reading area.
Many thanks to all the people who puzzled and gave support to the puzzling
project. The puzzlers and their families who supported the puzzlers. The
community who came in to encourage us in the puzzling. Sterling Bank in
Troy which provided the table. Troy Market for the trays we used for the
sorted pieces and the ever increasing tasty snacks that kept the puzzlers
motivated to stay in town and puzzle. The Friends of the Troy library who
provided the puzzle, the space and much support. The Troy library particularly Margie Fitzmorris whose enthusiasm for having the puzzle
completed and on the wall kept us going. When we we lagged and got
discouraged on the fourth impossibly hard section, she bought a beautiful
rug as an accessory to the puzzle so we acquired renewed enthusiasm to
complete it. The Latah Library District which provided press coverage and
the puzzle website that includes pictures of the progress here.
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