Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. This is a very important issue to discuss. I think it is one that many of us often look at very casually as we are naming a post office, but many…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
This is a very important issue to discuss. I think it is one that many of us often look at very casually as we are naming a post office, but many times citizens of America whose names go on these post offices are people that we know we need to remember. And I bring one of those individuals before us today in our legislation to name the post office in Beaver, Pennsylvania, after Robert Linn.
Robert Linn was one of those amazing people who anybody who ever met him would never forget. So I rise in support of the Robert Linn Memorial Post Office in Beaver, Pennsylvania.
He was sworn into office as the mayor of Beaver, Pennsylvania, on January 2, 1946, and he served the Borough of Beaver, Pennsylvania, for 58 consecutive years as mayor. I am not exaggerating. It was really 58 years. So he was able to see many of the people he married as mayor welcome their grandchildren and great-grandchildren into the world.
Prior to taking over the position of mayor at its original salary of $2,500 a year, Mayor Linn worked for the Duquesne Light Company. His first job was handling customer service before he eventually became supervisor of employee benefits, and he actually retired from the company in 1974. He continued his service both in the public and private sector throughout his life, and he was really known as a gracious gentleman. As I mentioned, anybody who knew him would never forget him. He showed up every day in a coat and tie. It didn't matter if it was Sundays, Saturdays, early, late. He was always in a coat and tie.
In 1995, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized Robert Linn as the longest-serving mayor in American history. His selflessness, his regard for the greater good, is reflected in these 15 consecutive terms that he served up until his death at age of 95 on August 22, 2004.
There is much more to Bob Linn than just being the longest-serving mayor in American history. It was Bob Linn, the father of four daughters, Mary Scheidmantel of Beaver; Eleanor Hesser of Beaver; Mary Hockenberry of New Cumberland, Pennsylvania; and Beth Mitchell of Virginia Beach, Virginia. There was Robert Linn, a grandfather of eight and a great-grandfather of one. He was definitely a dedicated family man, and he would do anything for his loved ones, including everyone in the Borough of Beaver.
For example, when he was in his early 80s, he wanted to show his grandson that he, too, could ride a bicycle. Unfortunately, he learned the hard way that maybe he shouldn't be riding a bicycle. Although he was capable of running the town quite effectively as mayor in his advanced years, he was a little past his prime when it came to bike riding, when he fell off and broke his wrist, but he continued in his public service.
There was Robert Linn, the mentor. A Beaver police chief was quoted as saying, ``One of the most important things that Mayor Linn ever told me was `You can think what you want, but once it is said, it is said.''' He said, ``I still to this day use this advice, and I pass it on to others. He was like a father to me,'' said Chief Anthony Hovanec.
Bob Linn was a teacher for 6 years at the Beaver Falls Junior High School and a volunteer scorekeeper for the Beaver High School football games. He was just a man who loved his community.
Finally, there was Robert Linn, the American and dedicated public servant, the one that I knew the best. He was a man dedicated to the community in which he lived to making sure it became better and better with every year he served in public life.
Beaver Borough was Bob Linn's passion. His crowning achievement was the Streetscape project, which he proudly declared his finest accomplishment as mayor. This project received the Beaver Area Heritage Foundation's Harry S. Truman Beautification Award. The Streetscape transformed the Borough of Beaver into a real-life version of a Norman Rockwell painting. It removed all the utility poles, all the parking meters, and replaced them with trees and Victorian-style street lamps and bricked the sidewalks and streets.
The Borough of Beaver and the 5,000 residents who live there still agree that Bob Linn's assessment that the borough was one of the ``best places you can be'' is certainly true. Mayor Linn was also successful in having the borough named a National Registry Historic District in 1996 and successfully converted the old freight train station in town into a museum. In fact, so many locals gathered there in October of 2000 that then-Governor George Bush, when he stopped his train on his cross-country tour, attracted so many residents of Beaver that they had to stop the train.
The Borough of Beaver and the 5,000 residents who live there still agree that Bob Linn was the most effective community leader they have ever seen. And I think beyond just the Borough of Beaver, people in the Commonwealth and people across the Nation need to see as an example of public service what Bob Linn did.
His effect on the borough goes much farther than aesthetics. He was a father, mentor, teacher, volunteer, and really the embodiment of a public servant. He truly loved Beaver to its core. He tirelessly dedicated himself and his life to making it the best place that it can be.
I urge my colleagues to support the Robert Linn Memorial Post Office to honor a man who so generously dedicated his life to the town that he loved so future generations can know all about Bob Linn.
