Joyce Salmon

Retirement has allowed her to take on her personal passion projects. For the last 14 years, Salmon has spent every Friday volunteering in the Punahou Archives, digging for details from archival sources to verify information in oral histories and other projects.

“She’s like a pit bull in her pursuit of an answer,” said Academy Dean Marguerite Ashford-Hirano ’71, who was a student member of the Punahou Library Club, which Salmon supervised, and who would later become Punahou’s head librarian at Cooke Library. “In my years there, Joyce inspired me with her devotion to student questions. As information research began to change and go digital, Joyce helped create a course to teach students about information literacy and how to effectively search the Internet.”

Other days are spent volunteering at the Tank on Rocky Hill. With her knowledge and love for books, Salmon has helped the Tank appropriately price Hawaiiana and rare books, some which have sold for hundreds of dollars. As a “Tankette,” she sorts and processes donated books year-round in preparation for sale at the Carnival.

“Joyce clearly loves Punahou, having worked for nearly 40 years,” said social studies faculty David Del Rocco, “and she still wears buff and blue every Friday.”