By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Erma Bombeck, Ann Landers, and now Becky Gillette. Newspaper columnists have often collected their works and turned them into books. Gillette, a Great Bend resident since 1958, has now done the same with her book "Jessie's Corner," a collection of religious-based columns under the same name.
"I started out in Ellinwood," Gillette said. "Most newspapers will have a religious column somewhere and Ellinwood didn't. I had been collecting different scriptures over the years and I thought maybe I could do something with them, so I started writing 'Jesse's Corner.'"
Gillette graduated from Great Bend High School in 1969 and earned an education degree a few years later. But "over the last 500 years," she taught for about seven years in an elementary classroom. Instead, she moved, got married, worked as a pension administrator, and has preached in various churches for various denominations for the past 15 years. She began writing for the Main Street Media publications in 2019.
By then, Gillette found herself jumping ahead in well-known verses of the Bible. Her column originated from a peculiar new way to read religious text.
"It's like reading the end of a book before you even start," she said. "You know how it's going to end up. I thought there was a lot of stuff in here I'm missing by projecting myself into the future part of the bible. So I decided to start with Revelations and read backward to Genesis."
Gillette applies everyday life to various pieces of scripture, including the time she got lost in the small town of Seward. "The problem is we don't know what we don't know," she said. "While I knew how to get to Seward, I didn't know anything about Mom's Bar & Grill, which is where we were meeting. I ended up spending about 30 minutes trying to find Mom's Bar & Grill, which is on a dirt road on the west side of town."
Gillette's collection of essays was illustrated by Great Bend's Phyllis Brack. Accordingly, Gillette has scheduled a book signing at Brack's Dilly & Doc Creative Studio, 1119 Main Street in Great Bend, on July 29 from 2-4 p.m. A copy of the book will be raffled off at the event.
"Jessie's Corner" can be purchased online at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble. Physical or digital copies may also be purchased through WestBow Press by CLICKING HERE. Copies may take two weeks to arrive.