Rewarding experience

There isn't much that can slow down Hobart Jenkins.

But a few weeks ago, the 86-year-old Bayview resident received a letter in the mail that did stop him in his tracks, for a moment.

The missive was from Spokane Community College. It said they wanted to name a building after him, and Jenkins wasn't quite sure how to react.

"I've never had anything like that happen, never dreamt of something like this, and I have wild dreams from time to time," Jenkins said. "But here I am, somebody's going to name a building after me. I thought, 'What's going on here?'"

He got to see for himself two weeks ago when SCC's president, Joe Dunlap, took Jenkins and some family and friends on a tour of the campus and the new Jenkins Wellness Center.

The building, under construction and slated for a January 2011 opening, will house some of the college's allied health and physical education programs as well as a student clinic.

The facility's name was selected by a naming committee and recommended to the college's Board of Trustees about a month ago.

"They wanted to name new buildings after individuals who have made a significant impact at Spokane Community College," Dunlap said.

When Jenkins arrived on campus, first as dean of instruction, and later as president until 1974, there was just one building. The school was scattered, in houses, garages and shops. During Jenkins' tenure, they built the Student Union Building (the Lair) and the gym. They also created a capital budget plan for an administration building, nursing facilities, auto shops and a library.

"We didn't have anything," Jenkins said.

He said he's awed when he returns to the school and sees the structures that weren't there when he left.

"I look around there and I think, 'Wow, these guys really did the job,'" Jenkins said. "I'm just pleased that I had the chance to put something into the foundation of that. It gives you kind of a warm feeling to have that connection."

Prior to his time at SCC, Jenkins was a high school principal at several districts in Washington. During that time, he went back to school and received his master's and doctorate degrees.

Education was one of three career fields Jenkins pursued simultaneously. He was also a wheat farmer on the Palouse, and a military pilot for 28 years with the Air National Guard - after first earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and a host of other medals as a bomber pilot during World War II.

In his retirement, Jenkins spent a dozen years on the Kootenai Electric board, was president of the Bayview Chamber of Commerce, and has been involved in various endeavors with Idaho Fish and Game.

Ask Jenkins if he considers himself an environmentalist and he laughs.

"I have an interest in reasonable environmentalism, and I don't see a heck of a lot of that," Jenkins said. "I like to think that I'm a conservative activist."

He currently serves on Fish and Game's Kokanee Recovery Task Force.

"The most fun I had was when the Navy wanted to expand their research facilities north on the lake (Lake Pend Oreille)," Jenkins said. "Environmentalists were having a cat fit about that, and come up with all kinds of things, 'What if this?' and 'What if that?'"

Opponents of the expansion were insisting the Navy's sonar would have a negative effect on the lake's living organisms, Jenkins said.

"Anyone with a basic understanding of science understands that acoustic waves in the water are there all the time from outboard motors, propellers, exhaust," he said. "It doesn't kill the larvae of the fish, the zooplankton, the phytoplankton, it doesn't do anything."

Jenkins contacted some connections at the University of Idaho, and proposed they write a grant proposal to research the impact of sonic energy in Lake Pend Oreille on vertebrate and invertebrate species.

The Navy took it and sent it to Washington, D.C., and the grant was funded.

The research showed what Jenkins knew it would, that no harm would come to the lake's creatures.

"Three kids got their masters' degrees out of that," Jenkins said with a smile. "That was after I was retired, but that was one of the most rewarding experiences I had. Reasonable science prevailed."

Jenkins also led the effort to build a community center in Bayview.

"We did things that most everybody said was impossible, that we could build a $300,000 community center with $175,000, but we did," he said.

Jenkins didn't think anything could be more thrilling than the way he felt the day they dedicated the Bayview center.

Then, he toured the college campus building that will bear his name.

"In Spokane, that day, that felt even better," Jenkins said.