YORBA LINDA >> Robert Lyons is the last original docent at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum, a volunteer gig he didn’t seek but one that has allowed him to give tours to thousands — including six U.S. presidents.
“I took President Nixon on a tour with Secretary of State Alexander Haig, and it was the first time I had ever been in the building, but it was also their first time,” recalled Lyons, now 79.
At tour’s end, Lyons asked Nixon what he thought of the library.
“He said, ‘It doesn’t make any difference what I think, it’s what the people think. I’ll come back in a year from now and ask you what the people think,’ and he did,” Lyons said. “That was certainly a highlight, and the people loved it.”
The Nixon Library has 160 volunteers, from those in their 20s to their 90s, part of the Docent Guild, an independent organization that assists the library with a variety of things including leading tours and running special events.
But with a recent $15 million renovation, the library needs 100 more to adequately staff the museum seven days a week and give tours to schoolchildren, community groups and dignitaries.
“This library requires more docents per work shift than the old library did,” explained William Baribault, president of the Richard Nixon Foundation.
Who better than Lyons to help teach newbies the ropes?
Since the library’s opening in 1990, Lyons has volunteered for more than 3,200 hours. He is the only remaining docent from that first graduating class and is now an ambassador, which means in addition to giving tours he teaches new docents as well. His late wife, Jo Lyons, was the first docent. He had only intended to tag along while she was interviewed.
“I didn’t even know what the term meant, but I became a docent because I wanted to be with my wife,” Lyons said.
Away from the museum, Lyons was a U.S. Army officer before spending 30 years in the aerospace and defense industry. In 1995, he launched his own company, which provided specialized equipment, training and engineering experience to airborne law enforcement units.
He has been a City Council member, the mayor and the treasurer for Placentia. He has since moved to Yorba Linda and is on the city’s Planning Commission.
Lyons does not have pictures of the six presidents he has given tours to on his home’s walls. The history buff doesn’t collect memorabilia.
“I don’t like to have my picture taken with anybody, and presidents fall into that category,” he said.
One of Lyons’ favorite parts of the redesigned library is the focus of Nixon in China. A 15-foot-tall image of Air Force One, which touched down in Peking on Feb. 21, 1972, is the background for life-sized, bronze-plated statues of Nixon and Premier Chou En-lai shaking hands during the first visit by an American president.
Then there is the dollhouse.
In July 1992, Jo Lyons presented Nixon with a replica of his birthplace. The miniature, which took 200 hours of careful labor by Lyons, her children and grandchildren, remains on display in the library.
“She built it and she gave it to the president, and the president gave it to the library,” Lyons said. “It’s my favorite artifact, because of the person who built it.”
There is another special place, too. Outside the house where Nixon was born is Jo’s Place. A brick pedestal holds a plaque honoring the library’s first docent, who died in 2003. A grandson sometimes leaves a red rose there.
In 2006, Army One, the former presidential helicopter, was parked at the museum, and a couple of years later several people started washing it, twice a month.
“The helicopter was brought in and no one was assigned to maintain it, and Saturday mornings we would go out and wash the helicopter,” said Barbara, a former director of membership at the library and now Lyons’ wife. “That’s how we got to know each other.”
Barbara Lyons hasn‘t seen her husband in action as a docent but figures he is pretty good.
“He just has a way about him that is very pleasant and almost relaxing,” she said. “He puts people at ease and is very entertaining.”
Robert Lyons’ talents aren’t going away — he has no intention of retiring as a docent.
And, said one of his four children, Terri Hipwell, that is a good thing.
“He really does enjoy the interactions with all the people, all the docents and all the staff and obviously the dignitaries,” she said. “I think as long as he is having fun, and as long as the library continues to grow and evolve, that will keep him interested — I think he’ll keep doing it.”
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