The Candidate – Who I am.
I am Kevin Akin, born in Riverside in 1950, active in various community activities since the age of 14, and still here in 2026. In adulthood I have been a carpenter for 5 years, a steelworker for 10 years, and a steam engineer is hospital boiler rooms for more than 20 years after that until retirement. My wife Margie Akin and I are the parents of four adult children, and have five grandchildren. We live in the University City neighborhood next to the 60/215 Freeway in Box Spring Pass, and have friends all over the area. Not many voters really care about all the details of the life of some candidate for State Assembly, but I thought a few details here and there might give you some insights into my background and my concerns.
U C Riverside
I never attended the University, but it has been an important part of my life. I remember being taken to the site by my parents as construction was underway in the early 1950s, and back when access to the campus was easier for the community (plentiful free parking), I attended many meetings and lectures on campus. When I married Margie Kleiger Akin in 1973, she was an undergraduate student in Anthropology at UCR. She took a break from school a little later, but went back to finish her Bachelor of Science in Anthropology after our children were born. She then returned to UCR to earn a Master of Science and PhD, also in Anthropology, and she did some teaching at UCR as well. Many of our friends are people who used to, or still do, attend or teach at UCR. The Anthropology Department where Dr. Margie Akin studied is based in Watkins Hall, right behind us in this photo.
The UCR campus was originally based on the University’s Citrus Experiment Station. My father Glen W. Akin came from Orange County to Riverside in 1939 with his young wife Virginia Harvey Akin to work at the Citrus Experiment Station, so I was born in Riverside due to the UC presence. Glen Akin switched to the USDA Salinity Lab in 1940, and he worked there until he retired. The Salinity Lab was then at the foot of Mount Rubidoux, but after Glen’s retirement it moved to the east edge of the UCR campus.
After World War II, the Canyon Crest Housing built for military families was opened to civilian government workers, and Glen and Virginia Akin lived there on Blaine Street from 1947 to 1949. Many years later, in 1973-1974, Margie and I lived a few doors away on Blaine Street when it was Married Student Housing. We left to move to our present house less than two miles away, and are still there 52 years later.
The Akin Family in 1953
My parents, Glen W. Akin and Virginia Harvey Akin, moved to Riverside in 1939 just in time for my oldest brother to be born here. The next year, my father got a “good government job” at the USDA Salinity Laboratory, then at the foot of Mount Rubidoux, for one thousand dollars a year. He later told me that he thought he had it made. But government wages stopped growing after World War II, and our family didn’t. Another son in 1942, another in 1946, then me in 1950. The first daughter came in 1952, and the second in 1955. One more son in 1959 made it seven kids – with no raises for government workers over ten years. My mother wrote and sold fiction, mainly to magazines, but even a few hundred dollars for a short story every year or two didn’t keep the wolf far from the door. Fortunately, after Kennedy became President in 1961, government workers did a bit better. Raises, and medical care too.
In early 1953 the family included the five children shown in this photo. I am right in front of my father, and my tiny little sister is in front of my mother. We were right in step with the spirit of the times, and the baby boom was well underway. Over the years, the family continued to grow with new generations. My parents’ first grandchild was born only two years after my youngest brother, and when we lost my mother at age 99 in 2017, she had 44 living descendants, and more have been born since.
My wife and I only had a small family – we have four adult children, and five grandchildren. (And they are all wonderful!) But uncles and aunts and cousins are all a very real presence in the world for our grandchildren, and as the family’s genealogist I try to keep everyone informed about both new relatives and interesting discoveries about old ones.
One fact I try to make sure all the kids in my family learn is that everyone in the world is a cousin. Yes, humans are all so closely related that everyone on earth is your cousin, and mine. Most of the relationships cannot be traced, as careful records of births, deaths, marriages, and census counts only go back one to three centuries in various countries. But every human, whether a resident of a friendly country or a less friendly one, is your actual biological cousin. I try to keep this in mind. The last name “Akin” is from a Gaelic word for oak trees, but with a different pronunciation it can mean I am “akin to all mankind.”
Tolerance is needed for families to get along, and that’s just nuclear families. It takes tolerance to get along with all our cousins, near and far, and tolerance is always a good idea.
At the UCR experimental fields.
When I was young, orange and other citrus groves were an overwhelming presence in Riverside, and still basic to the local economy. Some of the groves remain, but two of the bigger portions still to be seen are the experimental groves at UCR, and the California Citrus State Historic Park.
The Citrus Experiment Station is important to me, because my parents came to Riverside in 1939 so my father could work there. Like the rest of us, I enjoy the lovely trees and other plants that cover a substantial area on the east edge of Riverside. And like many of us, my yard contains many fruit trees, including some of the varieties studied and developed at UCR.
My support for continued and increased funding to study and fight agricultural pests arises from my own life experiences, and my concern for the farmers and farm workers I have known.
The FSA Golden Book
Back in 2002 and 2003, I spent several hundred volunteer hours putting together the “FSA Golden Book,” recounting the history of the Family Service Association of Western Riverside County on its fiftieth anniversary. I was named FSA Volunteer of the Year later that year. Most of the copies are still kept by the families of former FSA employees and volunteers, but several local libraries have copies.
I also designed the medal issued to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary, showing the then-new FSA building on Ironwood Avenue with the Box Spring Mountains in the background. The medal design was used as the book’s cover design. In this photo I hold the book, showing the medal design, in front of the actual building and the mountains behind it.
I also wrote the centennial history of Riverside General Hospital (1993), and I have written many articles on various subjects, mainly local history. I contributed articles to the 2020 and 2025 local history compilations published by the Riverside Historical Society, for Riverside’s 150th and 155th anniversaries.
I love books
I have a high regard for books, and have volunteered to move thousands of books into appreciative hands. I am shown here in 2025 bringing books to add to the “free books” shelves outside the fence of Susan Straight’s yard in Riverside. I have helped out when private libraries are left after the deaths of their owners, moving thousands of books to libraries, thrift shops, and free book distribution centers to make sure they all find a home. A voracious reader, I donate most of my books after I read them, keeping only a few thousand at home.