Celebration honors Presque Isle couple

PRESQUE ISLE – When it comes to community service, Floyd and Jean Harding are the names that pop up in people’s minds.

That was the consensus among state officials, friends and family members who honored the Presque Isle couple Saturday night.

About 100 people attended a gala celebration, “A Lifetime and Legacy of Laughter, Love and Service: An Evening Honoring the Many Contributions of Floyd and Jean Harding” held at Northern Maine Community College. Floyd Harding and several of his children were among the honored guests.

Floyd Harding served three terms in the Maine State Senate and helped to establish the Northeastern Maine Vocational Institute, a forerunner of NMCC. The late Jean Harding was the first woman elected to the Presque Isle City Council and its longest serving member to date.

“They were known in circles far and wide and had the respect of people as high up as the office of the president,” Governor John Baldacci recalled Saturday night in his tribute to the Hardings.

Baldacci said he would have “moved heaven and earth” to attend the event because the couple was very close to him.

“Jean was like a second mother to me,” he said, remembering how she often urged him to attend a certain meeting or tell him what he should be doing to help the people of Maine.

Jean Harding served on the city Council for 18 years and was the driving force behind several projects, including the city’s homeless shelter, animal shelter and the construction of the Presque Isle bike path.

She was best known, though, for listening to “her people” about problems and pressing issues, which she would bring back to the council or to the next level of government.

“She was always fighting for people,” Baldacci said. “She was always there to make sure she was a voice for the people who were struggling.”

Floyd Harding, the governor said, also was a tireless proponent for northern Maine. An attorney who began his career in state government in 1964, Harding served as both majority and minority leader in the state senate.

He also served on the Presque Isle and Aroostook County Democratic Committees, was a charter member of the Presque Isle Kiwanis Club, and sat on the board of directors for The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle.

NMCC President Timothy Crowley honored Harding as a “pioneer in the development of this college.” He noted Harding was among about a dozen men in the early 1960s who served as the founders of the institution.

“Generations of men and women from Aroostook County and beyond have bettered their lives and have been able to pursue their dreams because of the efforts of these visionaries,” Crowley said.

Crowley announced that Harding continues to give to the institution, recently establishing the Floyd and Jean Harding Scholarship.

The fund was created as part of a charitable remainder trust gift of an undisclosed amount made to the college.

“They have brought to us a history of service, extremely rich,” Dana Connors, president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, said of the couple’s legacy. “And that prepares us for a better tomorrow.”