Hynes sees the good in community, wants to “Pass It On” in new book

Through a collections of stories, Karla Hynes is passing on the message of God’s love in book she wrote titled “Pass It On.” The memoir shares stories of events and people she recalled for her radio show of the same name, which was aired on KSIB Radio starting in 2014.

“It started out with just things that were happening in the community that I thought would be good information to pass on to other people, not like, ‘Here’s something you should go to.’ Just some of the nicer things that were happening,” Hynes said.

Hynes said she doesn’t expect to become a best-selling author, but hopes to chronicle local events that have happened during a period of her life in the communities she lives and works in.

One story Hynes shares was triggered one Veterans Day.

“I was remembering I had a POW bracelet and retold that story,” she said.

Hynes said she was in sixth grade when she was given a POW bracelet her father ordered. The bracelets were inscribed with the name of a local soldier who was missing or killed in action, who one was supposed to pray for. Then one day, she saw the soldier whose name was inscribed on her bracelet on television.

“I was blessed by that because, the fact that I would even see that on television or in the newspaper at that age of a child and connect that that’s the name of the person, that to me was like a miracle,” said Hynes.

Hynes said another story she wrote about was a wedding she attended. The bride and groom incorporated bells in to the theme, which each of the guests ringing a small bell as the couple exited the church.

“What was cool about it was that everyone did it. It didn’t matter they were a big burly guy or a little kid, everybody stopped to do this. It just demonstrates the love people have for this couple and the support they have that they are willing to ring a little tiny bell, because that’s what the bride and groom wanted,” Hynes said. “And, is there some tiny thing in our life we could be doing to be a blessing to somebody?”

Because Hynes’ faith is heavily embedded in her work, her devotion causes her to slow down and ponder the meaning of her experience.

“I could almost tie everything back to a way of having a better understanding of really how the Lord works and where the Lord is working in the community, and how he uses some of the things that happens to us to explain maybe his nature or something about himself or to direct us in a different manner,” she said.

Of her process, Hynes would write the stories prior to recording them. She’d record an episode weekly – sometimes bimonthly – keeping each script.

“I always kept the script,” Hynes said. “It wasn’t archived anywhere.”

In 2018, a glance at the Mount Ayr Record News gave her an idea – to publish her stories for posterity.

“Darrell Dodge had an ad in the paper in Mount Ayr if you’ve ever wanted to publish a book and I thought about all those scripts and maybe I could put those together in a book,” Hynes said.

Dodge owns and operates PrairieKnoll Press, a Mount Ayr-based publishing company, outside of his duties as editor of Mount Ayr Record News.

“He’s an amazing man. He’s been so generous in working with me,” Hynes said.

Hynes said Dodge worked around her fluctuating schedule, checking in with her periodically, which helped her stay on track.

Publishing a book on years of work has not been without its trials and tribulations.

“I had all these stories on a laptop, but that laptop crashed,” said Hynes. “But fortunately, in my old age, I’m of that generation, I’ve saved everything in hard copy, as well.”

Hynes said she had to retype everything, but the process, as tedious as it was, was helpful.

“What I found, when talking, we don’t normally follow perfect grammar. You can’t write how you talk,” said Hynes. “I was getting away with stuff at the radio that wouldn’t be good in print because you use inflections in your voice, people can hear that, versus in print, you have to paint a picture in as few words as possible.”

As she retyped her stories, Hynes said found it interesting how her memories of certain events change with time. She also realized how much goes in to the design and layout of a book, everything from type of font to the color of pages to the location of page numbers.

“He sort of helped me navigate through that because it would have been crazy for me to have tried to have done that,” said Hynes.

After Dodge formatted Hynes’ work, she combed it for errors. After a few back-and-forths with Dodge, she ordered an authors copy.

“When you see it then (in book format) you see even more,” said Hynes. “Just to go back and reread through some of the stuff, I’m like, ‘Oh, you are a dork’ or ‘What are you thinking here?’”

But despite her self-criticism, Hynes felt immense pride.

“There was something very emotional about the first writer’s copy I got,” she said. “It comes in the mail and you open up and you see it. I just sobbed because you can not believe it.”

Hynes said something her pastor, Chuck Spinder, said resonated with her and gave her courage to share her work.

“Let your light shine, let people know,” she said about Spinder’s sermon. “I went back and forth on this for a long time. I want to give glory to the Lord. I don’t how much he loves them. That’s the most important thing.”

Join Hynes 5 p.m. Feb. 4 at Gibson Memorial Library for a visit about her new book and publishing process.