By Miles Layton

EDENTON — Anna is back. That’s good news.

Anna Louise Kallas will step back into her role as Regional Director of the Pettigrew Regional Library System on Monday, August 17, following a week-long leave that she says will leave her rested and ready to lead. For anyone who has watched this region wrestle with its library leadership over the past several months, that alone is worth celebrating.

The Pettigrew Regional Board of Trustees will meet at 11 a.m. Wednesday, August 12, in the Shepard Pruden Memorial Library meeting room to take action on this matter. Until the Board takes formal action, her reinstatement has not been approved, according to a statement received Friday evening from Jenny Wells, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees.

Flashback — Kallas resigned Thursday morning, just days into the job, after sending what she described as an impulsive resignation letter. By Thursday afternoon, she had already spoken with the Pettigrew Library System’s Board of Trustees and reversed course, saying she plans to take one week off, go to the beach, before returning to the position with the board’s full backing. Kallas was transparent and honest about her limits — and praised the Trustees that chose to meet that honesty with support.

“I’d like to apologize for rashly sending out a resignation letter,” Kallas said. “It was not something I had ever intended to do. It was something that was done very irrationally because I was so overwhelmed.”

Have faith in God that things will work out — because they did. Things turned out for the best for Kallas, for the Pettigrew Library System, and for the communities it serves.

I can’t wait to get back to writing stories about new exhibits featured at the library, articles promoting the upcoming Armchair Traveler series or the latest book arrivals.

Anna coming back: this is the story I wanted to write – a hero’s call to duty story. 

Sometimes the most encouraging outcome isn’t the absence of a crisis, but how quickly and how kindly the people around it respond when someone says, plainly, “I need help.”

Kallas’ resignation came after eight months in which she built a genuine reputation as Chowan County Librarian, leading Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library through a period she called transformative — for the library and for herself. That transformation didn’t happen by accident. It happened because she gave the job everything she had, for far longer than was sustainable.

Kallas was named successor to former Regional Director Nate King, who announced his resignation in May at a Regional Library Board of Directors meeting in Edenton. King’s final day was July 31. Kallas resigned as Chowan County librarian effective July 6, worked her last day in that role July 31, and began as regional director the following Monday — stepping directly from one demanding role into another with no break in between. Anyone who has changed jobs without a single day off in between knows how disorienting that alone can be. Kallas did it while also taking on far greater responsibility.

“I’m just tired,” Kallas said. “I have not taken a vacation in eight months. Worked basically 60 to 65 hours a week since I’ve gotten here. And I made a decision based off tiredness and made a decision based off a job that I felt was overwhelming to me initially.”

Kallas was candid about the emotional weight of the new role, even as she affirmed — clearly and without hedging — her ability to grow into it. 

“Walking into this role, I knew I could do it, but just felt not prepared enough to do it,” she said. “And it’s not anything I can’t learn how to do. It’s not anything, again, I can’t get support and help on how to do this. Just, again, from an emotional perspective, it just felt very daunting to me.”

But the more Kallas thought about it, the more her outlook had shifted — a shift that speaks as much to her own resilience as it does to the support she received. “Looking back, I realized I can do this job,” she said. “I do have the resources, I do have the support, I have the means to be a successful director. Therefore, I am just taking a week off and going to recharge and rest and hit the ground running.”

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Thursday… Within 24 hours of the resignation, both the board’s president and vice president called Kallas directly — first, she said, to check on her well-being, and only second to make clear the board wanted her back. That order mattered. Before there was any conversation about the library, there was a conversation about Anna, the person.

“The board has called me, both the president and the vice president,” Kallas said, naming Jenny Wells as board president and Marie Perry as vice president. “They’ve both reached out to me in the last 24 hours. Both first asked me if I’m okay as a person. Second, you know, to say the board is behind me as new director. I’ve got their full support and that they’re willing and able to help me in any way possible.”

Kallas said the board recognized the scale of the transition she was navigating, and credited them with understanding what she was up against rather than simply expecting her to push through it. 

“They understand this is daunting,” she said. “Going from a county librarian to a directorship is a huge step. And that I take a week off, get some rest, sleep, recharge and come back and we all start new. And that moving forward, they will do whatever they can to assist me as director.”

Asked whether the board’s response had eased some of the pressure she’d been under, Kallas didn’t hesitate — and it was clear how much that quick, compassionate outreach had meant to her.

“I really, honestly am” relieved, she said. “The last several weeks have been extremely stressful. Watching a director go out the door, getting very little training from the previous director, and again, a different level of leadership, a different level of responsibility on multiple levels — such as budget, HR, state requirements that are not required of me as a county librarian, such as our state aid applications, where we receive money from the state that comes back into the library system. It helps support the library system. Those types of things are not easy things.”

An Apology, and a Plan to Rest

Kallas described the resignation letter as out of character for her — and anyone who has followed her work over the past eight months would likely agree.

“I am somebody who just puts their feet in the trenches and keeps going,” she said. “I do what I normally need to do. I am pretty even-keeled, pretty easygoing, non-emotional, always professional. And this was unprofessional for me, and the only thing I can do is apologize to the region, apologize to the people that I needed to apologize to, which are my board members. Apologize to the regional staff and let’s just say I just needed a well-deserved rest and vacation. And we’ll move forward and we’ll make this region stronger. We’ll make this region what it should be.”

It takes a certain amount of courage to say plainly, in public, that you made a mistake because you were running on empty. That kind of honesty deserves to be met with grace — and in this case, it was.

Kallas said she intends to spend the week away from the region entirely — visiting family, including her sons, and taking time at the beach — before returning to work.

“One of the things I realized is that as a county librarian, especially living where I live, I’m always on,” she said. “Everybody in the community knows who you are. Everybody has been nothing but loving and supporting here in Edenton. But that’s also exhausting, and when you step away from work, you’re never really stepping away from work. So I think taking a week, getting out of the area, going and visiting friends, going home and visiting my sons, going to the beach — that will just get me the time I need where I can really rest. So I can sleep, I can eat well, I can relax and just hit the ground running.”

Kallas also had a message for the region’s library staff, many of whom are contending with their own heavy workloads amid staffing shortages — a message rooted in exactly the kind of empathy the board showed her.

“To staff, I would say: take care of yourselves,” Kallas said. “These jobs are not easy. These jobs are hard. We are a poor region in many ways, financially. We don’t have enough staffing for our libraries, which falls back into finances. Take care of yourselves. Don’t overdo it, because you’ll get to where I am. That won’t help any of us. And just know that I’m here for you when I do return.”

Kallas said her focus now is on returning rested and ready to build on the momentum she started — and after everything the past week has shown about the people standing behind her, that goal feels well within reach.

“Monday, August 17th, I will step back into the role of regional director, and we’ll just chip away at what we can, a little bit at a time,” she said. “And make positive changes and growth changes here for the region. And again, make us stronger and better.”

Edenton, and the whole Pettigrew region, will be better for having a director who knows when to ask for help — and a board willing to give it.