Liz Petty quickly found her place at Kenyon: it's behind the counter of Denham Sutcliffe Booksellers, a used bookstore that opened in September 2004.

"I've pretty much wanted to have a bookstore since I was eight," says Petty, a member of the Class of 2008 from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Although she had volunteered at her local library and apprenticed briefly in a bookstore, she did not expect to achieve her goal in the first month of college. "Have you ever heard of the right student coming to the right school at the right time and finding the right place? That's Lizzie," says Jack Finefrock, the long-time manager of the Kenyon College Bookstore and a bibliophile who started the used-book shop. Actually, he revived it: the late Denham Sutcliffe, a revered English professor, had run such a business in Gambier from the late 1940s to the late 1950s.

Petty "wandered in" during the second week that the used-book store was open. "I loved it, but it was kind of a mess," she recalls. She promptly contacted Finefrock and offered to help. That Saturday, she spent seven hours alphabetizing and shelving titles. Impressed, Finefrock hired her and made her the store's student manager. Before long, he was adding to her responsibilities-and to her education as a bookseller. Thanks to Finefrock's mentoring, Petty plans to attend the summer Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, a program for booksellers, librarians, and collectors.

"You get to know so many more people, " she says of her experience in the shop. "It seems like every professor here wishes they owned a bookstore. I mention that I work there, and it's like, boom, instant connection."

Finefrock supports Petty's plans to make the store a venue for readings and book-signings. "With Lizzie," he says, "the store's agenda has become for students to read wildly, widely, far beyond their own studies of interest. My job is to step back and let her do her thing."