A library named Bob

Naming buildings after people just doesn’t happen in Prince George. That is, unless the person and the building are so inextricably bound to one another that any other name just would not do.
That’s why the Main Branch of the Prince George Library, located downtown, will now be known as The Bob Harkins Branch. The place is aptly named for an individual whose roots were deep in the city, a city that wouldn’t be what it is today, but for Bob.
Those were the sentiments expressed by library board chair Doug Edgar and Mayor Colin Kinsley among others at an announcement ceremony attended by members of city council, the Harkins family and members of the library board on Monday.
“Bob had a great appreciation for good stories, it is truly fitting that a building holding so many of the world’s great stories now bears his name,” says Mayor Kinsley, who knew Mr. Harkins not only through his two-year service on city council and extensive involvement with numerous community organizations, but as a fellow racer at the PGARA Speedway and personal friend.
“This is a very special day,” says Mr. Harkins’ wife, Barbara, who attended the ceremony with son Michael, his wife, Linda, and their children Caitlyn, 9, Derek, 4, and Angela, 4.
Mr. Harkins passed away on November 28, 2000 at age 69, one year ago yesterday.
Mr. Harkins worked as a radio and television broadcaster. He was a Prince George Public Library board member for many years and supported local authors by reading their manuscripts and promoting their work on his shows during live interviews. In the 1960s, he began advocating public awareness of local history and was eventually a founding member of the Prince George Library’s local history committee and served on the board of the Fraser-Fort George Regional Museum. He was selected as Prince George’s Citizen of the Year in 1997.
“Bob would come to the library to research his stories which now exist as records on tape in the library,” says the board chairman. “He believed in the public library as a common place for both seniors and teenagers to meet and learn.”
For this reason, Mr. Harkins’ friends and long-time associate Sandra Nahornoff is so pleased that the addum: “There are no strangers here, only friends we have not met” was engraved on his naming plaque. That was the mantra of Project Friendship, a program Mr. Harkins helped to found in 1986, whose goal it was to create community friendships for people with disabilities, says Ms. Nahornoff.
Mr. Harkins’ wife Barbara is still treasurer of Project Friendship.
“Bob would think this kind of recognition undeserved because he was such a modest person, but it is so deserved from our perspective. He never asked for thanks from anyone for all of the things he did,” says Ms. Nahornoff. “And our city would not have all of the programs and organizations it does today if Bob hadn’t fought for them.”
Library Manager of Adult Services Joan Jarman says she will remember Mr. Harkins, like so many, as a wonderful story teller. “At any meeting you could count on Bob telling a story. He believed in story-telling and in recording local history,” she says. “He researched his broadcasting features at the library, was a moderator of many panels, and he often, although few people know this, did eulogies at funeral services. He would come [to the library] to research them.
“Bob knew people, he was a sensitive and caring man who had personal relationships with a great number of the city’s pioneers, whether he met them on the street or through interviewing them on one of his shows.”
Following the ceremony, Mr. Harkins’ son, Michael told the Free Press that naming the library after his father was “a proud, fitting tribute to the time and effort he put into his labour of love.” But dad wouldn’t be speechless, he adds, in reference to Mr. Harkins’ well-known knack for mindful chatter.
Etching Bob Harkins’ name in history, on a building that stands for what he stood for, is a good story in itself. It will go down in local history. It will be told and retold for years to come.