The library was her passion, so it’s only fitting that the Edmonds Library now officially bears the name of the late Edmonds City Councilmember Peggy Pritchard Olson.

Friends, relatives and dignitaries gathered Tuesday for the official ribbon cutting to announce the new library name: Edmonds Sno-Isle Library Peggy Pritchard Olson Building.

Deputy Snohomish County Executive Gary Haakenson, who served as Edmonds mayor during Olson’s time on the council,  recalled that his first few exchanges with Olson  “were all about the library.”

“Years later, she managed to convince me and the entire city council to talk about the latest book we had read and report about it during a televised city council meeting,” Haakenson recalled.

Olson was a member of the Friends of the Edmonds Library, and if you stopped by the Friends annual book sale each October, “she was always there, moving around filling books in, sorting, bagging…always saying hello to the patrons,” Haakenson said. “She was in her element, working with friends, working with books all for the betterment of this library.”

In an interview before Olson died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease in late 2009, she said she wanted “to be remembered as someone who made a difference,” Haakenson noted. “She did indeed make a difference, and she will be remembered.”