While the watermelon seeds are flying and bands are tuning up their instruments, supporters of Pardeeville's Angie Williams Cox Memorial Library will be invited to bid on any number of decorated chairs.

The chair auction starts at 10 a.m. at the Watermelon Festival in Chandler Park, with about 40 hand-decorated chairs - half of them acquired at rummage sales, half of them surplus chairs from the library - available for sale to the highest bidder.

Auctioneer David Casper is volunteering his time to referee the bidding, said library assistant Julie Niehoff. Bids will start at $5 for each chair, but Niehoff said she doubts the bids will stay that low. That's because the chairs are works of art, almost too decorative to be used for sitting, she said.

For example, one of the library's old chairs - a wooden one with an attached writing surface - has been painted to look like a giraffe.

Other chairs feature cartoon characters, quilting, University of Wisconsin symbols and Americana. Chairs can be viewed the day of the event, or in advance at the library or on the library's Web site, www.scls.lib.wi.us/par/special-events.html.

Proceeds from the sale will go toward new items for the library's children's room, which is being moved to the library's fifth floor (formerly a Masonic meeting space) after the children's room in the basement sustained serious damage in this summer's flooding.

The auction was supposed to have been held at the end of June, but was postponed while Pardeeville fought floodwaters throughout the month.

Niehoff said she got the idea for the chair auction online from another library, and worked with Melody Richter to put it together.

"It was supposed to raise money for things we want," she said, "but now it's for things we need."

ljerde@capitalnewspapers.com

745-3587