During the height of the pandemic, I started an online interview series called ”The 180,”about people who have made major turnarounds.
One of my favorite interviews was with Howard Olivier, who among his other contributions to the world, enlivened the Boise library (Library!) by purchasing several lighted exclamation points for its signs.
The city recently refurbished those signs and gave one of the original !s back to Howard.

Last week we had the honor of returning one of the original exclamation points from our downtown Library! signs to Howard Olivier and Joe Levitch. Howard and Joe were the idea and funding behind the punctuation signs in 1995. At the time, they were a bit controversial, but today we cannot imagine the Library without them. Come see our newly reinstalled signs which light up the Library and serve as an inspiration, in Howard’s words, “to be awesome today and every day.”
If you’d like to learn more about Mr. Olivier, who continues to exclaim his love of life despite having faced some great challenges, here is our conversation!
–Marcia Franklin, producer and host