A ball of energy with a big smile.
That’s how former co-workers, turned longtime friends, describe Lana Pinsky.
“(A) little eccentric, loved to dance, you know? But was full of spirit,” Craig Smith says fondly, leaning forward on the couch in the Halifax North Memorial Public Library’s children’s section.
Smith has known Pinsky for decades. He, like many North Enders, grew up coming to the library often and began working there in Grade 11.
“There was that sense of family and sense of community and camaraderie that you don’t get in a whole lot of places, and so Lana was a part of that as well,” he says.
In the ’90s, Pinsky joined the library’s team as the reading support program co-ordinator, with big ideas about how to expand the program while engaging kids.
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“When the program first started, it was the brainchild of the late Terry Symonds, who was the first youth worker here at the library. …