By VALERIE METREJEAN

Staff Writer

Shortly after Leah Brown left Prescott Memorial Library on Sept. 20, she phoned a colleague to say her home had burned to the ground.

"All I have left are the clothes on my back," Brown, a library employee and a Tech alumna, said.

Few things could be salvaged from the collapsed double-wide trailer, located in a small town called Friendship, 14 miles outside of Jonesboro. Co-workers immediately bought clothes and tried to provide what they could for Brown, someone who Mary Shively, library specialist two, said "would be there for anyone who needed it."

While on her way home from work, Brown said she received a phone call from her grandmother about the fire.

She said she just returned to Tech to work as the Acquisitions Library Specialist three, ordering books. After only a few weeks in her new position, Brown was devastated with the news of her house.

"I think the hardest part is knowing that she has lost everything," Shively said. "Her family's cedar chest that was filled with all her pictures from her mother is gone."

The fire that destroyed the trailer allegedly grew from an electrical spark in the kitchen.

Brown's husband Donny and two cats were not in the trailer when it went up in flames.

Brown made quite an impression on several coworkers, who could not stop talking about how compassionate she was to others.

"She grows her own peas and watermelon," said Shively. "She really is an amazing young woman."

Shively said Brown even fixes her own tractor.

Shively, along with several other library employees, has started a fund for Brown. Money can be donated to her account at Community Trust Bank.

"That is definitely something Tech would do," Catie Blunt, a sophomore elementary and special education major, said. "It's part of being in the Tech family. It's so great that everyone is supporting her."

Shively said the generosity has already poured in.

"We are just so appreciative to everyone for their prayers, thoughts and kindness," Brown said.

For more information, contact Carolyn Sumrall or Mary Shively at 257-3783.