A late Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board commissioner and the newly named park that bears her name will be celebrated Saturday morning.
Earlier this month, the board renamed a portion of Riverside Park after Annie Young, a beloved, long-serving commissioner who died in January.
The Park Board has invited residents to gather at Annie Young Meadows on Saturday at 10 a.m. to celebrate her life at a special dedication event.
"I love the Park Board. I'm passionate about the system and its place in Minneapolis," Young said in a 2015 interview with the Star Tribune.
Young, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, died just one month after fulfilling her seventh term. She was 75.
Young championed solar energy use and clean-water initiatives during her nearly 30-year stint on the board.
"More than anything we are honored she gave as much as she did for the country's best park system," her son Shawn Young told commissioners at the Feb. 7 Park Board meeting.
Colleagues said they treasured Young for her institutional memory, for her representation of people in the city's poorer neighborhoods, for her insistence on sustainability and her green agenda. They also say Young was "instrumental in the creation, development and stewardship" of riverfront parkland, which includes Riverside Park — one of the city's first parks. Riverside consists of 28 acres along the West Bank of the Mississippi.
"If anybody asked her which park she liked the most, she would actually say she liked them all because they were all different and unique in their own ways," said Becki Smith, Young's campaign manager and friend, during the February Park Board meeting.
"But I will say if anybody asked which held her fondest memories, she would say Riverside Park was the place that held her fondest memories."
Karen Zamora • 612-673-4647 Twitter: @KarenAnelZamora
