Six inducted recently into Spokane Citizen Hall of Fame

Elson Floyd, the late president of Washington State University, was the recipient of the first Spokane Citizen Impact Award, created by the Spokane Public Library Foundation and the city of Spokane to honor people who’ve made “significant and lasting contributions” to the community.

From now on, the award will be known as the Elson Floyd Impact Award.

Floyd’s widow, Carmento Floyd, accepted the award at a breakfast last week, speaking movingly about how much Spokane meant to her late husband.

Floyd’s honor capped the induction of six people into the Spokane Citizen Hall of Fame, sponsored by the library foundation and the city of Spokane. They are:

• Jess Walter, a New York Times best-selling author, in the category of Arts and Letters;
• Stacey Cowles, publisher of The Spokesman-Review and president of Cowles Co., in the category of Economic Development and Business;
• Patrick Jones, executive director of Eastern Washington University’s Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis, in the category of Education;
• Dr. Darin Neven, an emergency room doctor who helped create a local “hot spotters” program to help the chronically homeless, in the category of Innovation and Leadership;
• Jeanne Ager, a consultant who has mentored numerous nonprofit organizations and their boards, in the category of Public Service and Philanthropy;
• Dr. Alan Hendrickson, a retired pediatrician who founded the Spokane Area Regional Center for Child Abuse and Neglect, in the category of Science, Health and Medicine.

These six individuals join 2016’s “historic inductees” in the Spokane Citizen Hall of Fame: Father Joseph Cataldo, founder of the school that became Gonzaga University; James and Eleanor Chase, who were Spokane’s first black mayor and a longtime social worker, respectively; Francis Cook, who founded Spokane’s first newspaper; Bing Crosby, the legendary singer and actor; and Carl Maxey, a lawyer and civil rights leader.

For more information on previous inductees and the Spokane Citizen Hall of Fame, visit www.spokanelibraryfoundation.org/citizen-hall-of-fame/.