Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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With her quirky personality and distinctive look, Ruth Lipnik was the epitome of all that's quirky and distinctive about the search for information and truth.

From her command post in the reference department of the Roanoke County Headquarters Library on Virginia 419 she helped countless patrons get answers to their increasingly sophisticated questions.

In the end, the computers that began to dominate her work contributed much to her decision to retire Oct. 31 after 26 years on the job.

"I don't want to be a computer guru," she says.

And so the library has lost one of its most recognizable staffers. Many times, when patrons sought information, they asked for "the lady with the hair."

Lipnik's hair is thick and black and has come in many guises -- cropped to her skull, massed in curls or just left as it naturally occurs.

"You never knew which hair it was going to be," says Diane Rosapepe, the county's library director. "It was always amazing hair."

Pilgrim traveler

Lipnik wasn't from here -- you didn't need a bio sheet to tell you that. She arrived at age 29 after a patchwork, post-collegiate career path that included a failed attempt at teaching, two stints working in group homes for troubled children, a year pursuing a master's degree in history from Rutgers and a season tending the horses at a New York resort.

Ultimately, she earned her master's in library science from Florida State University. A native of New Bedford, Mass., she picked the Southern school on a whim.

Her sister and she drove down to it in Ruth's Volkswagen Beetle.

"When we got to Georgia, we stopped understanding anybody," she says, with a laugh.

She wound up in Roanoke because her sister and brother-in-law, Harriett and Jim Dahlgren, had moved here first.

She became the county library's first reference librarian -- a half-time position coupled with her other half-time job as children's book cataloger.

She left as the head of a department with three full-time and five part-time staffers.

Curiosity propelled her into it, she says, modestly.

She is the definition of self-deprecating.

No pretenses

Customer service was a huge part of reference work.

"I'm not a real people person," she says.

Patience was, too.

"I'm not a patient person," she says.

Her teaching experience?

"I was no good."

Her studies at Rutgers?

"I wasted a bunch of my parents' money and a year of my time."

The job at the resort?

The place was open all year, and she can still feel the frostbite.

"One of the things I most admire about her," Rosapepe says, "is she did give her opinion and she had principles and believed in things."

Lipnik is an international bicyclist, co-founder of the Roanoke Valley Chapter of the Literacy Volunteers of America, a Boston Red Sox fan and a Yankee who in 1999 married her husband, Randal Johnson. He grew up in Bedford.

Shortly after their wedding, Johnson took off on a yearlong, round-the-world bicycle ride.

Now they are buying a $375,000 motor yacht that's under construction in China. In a year or so, they plan to take to the Seven Seas.

"I came home one evening in March 2002 and said I'd seen the world from a bicycle -- I'd like to see it from sea level," Johnson explains.

Some friends "think we're going to go out there and die," Lipnik says, a little warily now that she has watched the movie "The Perfect Storm."

Johnson owns Roanoke Wreck Repair as well as commercial property that will contribute to their retirement. He firmly believes life at sea will be less expensive than life on land.

Library reference work has evolved significantly from Lipnik's early days. She does not enjoy the computer training and troubleshooting that go into it now.

Though retired, she still helps out as needed.

The reference desk is her legacy.

"She set an extraordinary example for customer service and absolute dedication to getting the answers that people needed," Rosapepe says.

Godspeed, Ruth Lipnik.

Joe Kennedy's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.