Lumberton’s Owen Thomas publishes children’s book based in Robeson County

LUMBERTON 一 Mayor Pro Tem Owen Thomas has recently published his first book, a children’s story starring his young son, Lexington.

Thomas has been an active member of the Kiwanis organization in Robeson County for more than a decade, he said. According to its website, Kiwanis is a national organization that focuses on positively impacting children in small communities.

According to Thomas, the main service project that the Robeson County chapter does is reading to second-graders during the school year. “I thought, ‘How cool would it be to have my book to go and read to the kids?’” he said, “and make it about the community?”

Thomas had the idea to write a book about three years ago, though his busy schedule kept him from starting his story. His work as mayor pro tem, president of the Humane Society, real estate business and family life all took up part of his days, leaving him little to no time to pursue a personal project.

Last year, Thomas finally decided to cross off writing a book from his bucket list after hearing an author come to speak at one of the Kiwanis events he was attending at the time. “It was almost 2024,” he said, “ and I figured that if I’m going to do this, I need to figure it out now.”

Part of Thomas’s inspiration was his family’s farming past in Iowa alongside the farming culture of Robeson County. Another part was the basic idea of a piggy bank and kids putting money into one to save up for something meaningful to them.

“Lexington Saves Piggy” follows a young boy named after Thomas’s son Lexington and his efforts to help his farmer friend Piggy, who is a pig, after his crops were lost and he couldn’t pay his dues. To help his friend, Lexington goes out into town and starts doing odd jobs and fundraising.

Thomas said that the book’s illustrations are based on real places in Robeson County. He said the illustrators he was working with at his publisher, Fulton Books, needed extremely detailed descriptions of the scenes, and the setting being his local community made communicating precisely what he wanted with them much easier.

“I went out in the community and took pictures,” Thomas said. “I already knew my scenes since everything was local, so that helped the illustrators to see what I was creating.”

Some recognizable spots in the book include Thomas’s house, Tanglewood Elementary and the Robeson County Humane Society.

Now that the book is out for preorder, Thomas said he feels good about his work. He said his hope for his story is that it spreads a message of how important community and friendship are and gives children a hint of financial literacy.

“I didn’t do it for the purpose of making money,” Thomas said. “I did it to make something I knew my son would think was cool down the road when he looked back on it and something that would shed a positive light on our community.”

The book “Lexington Saves Piggy” is available for preorder on Amazon and the Barnes & Noble websites.