Professor Emeritus John Howard

I became a member of the Board of the Mount Vernon Library because of the impact a library had on my life when I was young. At the time I joined the Board I held the rank “Distinguished Service Professor” at one of the State University of New York colleges, I was also a practicing attorney, and a published author, yet I grew up in a struggling, single parent household. A number of factors contributed to moving from where I had been to where I was when I became a Board member—-my mother, a couple of good teachers, and access to the local library.  Perched on a hill about half a mile from where we lived, the local library provided access to books and books provided access to the larger world,  becoming a kind of stairway to a better life. It is my hope and my belief that the Mount Vernon library plays a similar role in the lives of the young people I see there everyday, engrossed in reading, working on school papers, doing assignments at computer terminals. I am certain that down the road, in future years, some of those youngsters, successful in their work and in their lives, will look back and say, “The Mount Vernon Library was  really a great place. It really helped me take on the larger world and emerge a winner.”