Roanoke City's Main Library celebrates the John Kern Research Area.
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Susan Kraughto
Dan Smith talks about John Kern's contributions.
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Susan Kraughto
Vice Mayor Joe Cobb shoots a photo of the Kern plaque.
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Susan Kraughto
Kern's daughter Margaret Zeilouny with Mayor Sherman Lea reveal the plaque for John Kern.
Roanoke City's Main Library now has a room specifically for John Kern and those who follow him. The John Kern Research Area, off the Virginia Room at the library, where Kern did so much of his historic research, was dedicated this afternoon before a good-sized crowd at the library.
As a close friend of John's for more than 20 years, I was asked to give the dedication remarks, centered on a man whose work revealing the area's history—much of it concerning African-Americans in the region—was almost singular. Kern dealt in areas where few had ventured in the past and helped earn historic recognition for important sites and people.
Kern died a few weeks ago at 78, following a history lecture in far Southwest Virginia. He retired from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources eight years ago (he had worked there since 1989), but his work didn't stop. He continued to make important finds and to give talks about those finds.
The Virginia Room at the library has a collection of more than 100 Kern documents and it is fitting that he be presented his own room for those academics and researchers wanting to continue or add to his work. “This is just about the perfect way to honor a quiet academic who contributed much and asked little in his lifetime,” I told the crowd.
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).