Driftwood River Anthology

On November 12, 2021, in recognition of the bicentennials of both Bartholomew County and the city of Columbus, Indiana, the Bartholomew County Genealogical Society and Mill Race Center's Afternoon for Arts series presented Driftwood River Anthology, a local version of Edgar Lee Masters' classic, Spoon River Anthology, written and performed by Shirley A. Lyster's February 2019 Mill Race Center Adult Literature Class. Class members read poems they had written in first-person about local people, family, or friends who had passed away.

Lovingly collected and supervised by Ann "Nancy" PenceFritsch and Kim Stover, this book contains those poems and is a tribute not only to that evening and that class, but also to Shirley, who forged an award-winning, 52½-year career as an English teacher at Columbus High School/Columbus North High School, retiring in 2004. A decade later, Shirley started teaching adult education courses in Columbus. In the next seven years, she taught dozens of literature courses to adults, including close to forty books and plays.

The Driftwood River Anthology public reading came more than two years after the class had penned its poems, as the COVID pandemic interrupted such gatherings.

Shirley passed away on June 7, 2024, at the age of 94.