A 'lucky' man: Steve Bobb Sr. chairs Veterans Special Event Board, continues to create art

By Danielle Frost

Grand Ronde Tribal Elder and lifelong area resident Steve Bobb Sr. has held a multitude of titles in his almost 69 years of life: Husband, father, grandfather, soldier, veteran, friend, professional truck painter, sign maker, artist, rebel, cancer survivor, Tribal Council member and volunteer.

He is passionate about veteran’s causes and fiercely loves his family. Most describe Bobb as someone who speaks his mind and he wouldn’t have it any other way. One of his mottos is, “Lead from the heart, speak from the heart.”

“I always say that I am either extremely blessed or the luckiest guy on earth,” Bobb says. “To have been through what I have been through and still be here on this earth, I know I have a purpose.”

Currently, Bobb shares his artistic talent with the Tribe and community, as well as serves as chair of the Veterans Special Event Board. He also served two terms on Tribal Council from 2007 to 2013.

“I did two tours on Tribal Council,” he says. “I wanted to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps. He was a leader in the Grand Ronde community his entire life.”

On a recent day with the hint of spring in the air, Bobb sat down in his art studio and told his story. It hasn’t always been a pristine or pretty tale, but the gritty details are interwoven with humor.

Bobb’s eyes gleam as he shares some of the escapades from the days when he was growing up in Grand Ronde on his grandparent’s 240-acre farm located where the Tribe’s Natural Resources Department is now situated.

“Growing up, I thought everyone lived on 240 acres,” he says. “I would come into town and be like, ‘What the heck is this? These people are all squished together!’ ”

Growing up during the Termination era, he formed a lifelong bond with fellow Tribal Elder and past Tribal Council Chairman Reyn Leno. The two have gone through much together, from high school hijinks to service in Vietnam, to raising families and serving on Tribal Council.

Bobb jokes that while the two attended St. Michael’s Grade School, Leno was the altar boy while he “was most definitely not.”

“He’s right about that one,” Leno says, chuckling.

Bobb describes the discipline at St. Michael’s as harsh, so he did his best to still have fun. However, his class clowning became so prolific that at one point nuns stopped by his grandparents’ home to express “concern for his soul.”

That’s why he finds it ironic that he is now the “go to” Elder for invocations at Tribal events.

“Who would have ever thought that?” he says, smiling. “Reyn always tells me not to tell this story, but he jokes that he is going to stand as far away from me as possible when I lead invocations in case lightning strikes.”

The early years

Bobb was born on April 7, 1949, to Faye Riggs White and Wilson Bobb Jr. When he was two months old, his mother was killed in a car accident on Highway 18. He was almost made a ward of the state, but grandparents Wilson (Sr.) and Lena Bobb fought for two years to adopt their grandchild.

“Nowadays, grandparents raise their grandkids quite a bit,” Bobb says. “But in the late 1940s and early 1950s that was pretty uncommon.”

His grandfather was a no-nonsense man who believed in the value of hard work and had Bobb rise at 5 a.m. most days. Although waste and laziness were not tolerated, Bobb says that his grandparents gave him “everything he wanted” since they weren’t at an age where they could participate in activities with him.

“Everyone called me ‘the brat,’ ” he says. “My aunt, Verna Larsen, called me that until nearly the day that she died.”

He isn’t sure what age he met Leno, but the two remember each other “as far back as we could go.”

“Back then, Grand Ronde was a cocoon,” Bobb says. “All of us were pretty much related so every other house was a relative or family connection. It was very tight-knit and everyone looked out for one another.”

The Bobb’s farm was often home base for the boys to hang out and admire his model cars, which Bobb built and painted from the time he was very young.

“It was during the era of Termination and there was some name calling,” Leno says. “Kids in town would call us ‘The Bad Guys,’ so we changed the name to ‘The Good Guys,’ and had our own hand signals and cars, just like a gang. We all stuck together and it was quite an adventure.”

One of their adventures included “taking a break” during school days to sneak over to the pool hall in Willamina.

“We knew as long as we made it back to school before the buses left, it would be fine,” Leno says. “Then, once we got older and better, we hit the era of playing for beers. Our wives, Liz and Connie, would definitely say that we were quite good pool players.”

Bobb and his wife were both in the Willamina High School Class of 1967, but he dropped out three months shy of graduation after he and his friends were suspended for tampering with a fire alarm. One of his friends went back, but he and another friend did not.

“My grandfather had a hard time understanding why I just wouldn’t straighten up,” he says. “He was well-educated, had a college degree and trained to be a CPA. He couldn’t figure out why I didn’t get it. … It hasn’t affected anything I wanted to do in life, but I don’t know that you could do that today. You really can’t get away with stuff like that.”

Bobb got a job at the Willamina Brick Plant. Shortly afterward, he and Connie married.

Then, a series of poor life choices contributed to his decision to join the Marine Corps. Within a short period, he lost his job, got into trouble with the law and subsequently crashed his 1965 Corvette while “on the lam” in Montana.

“So I had no job, no car and Connie was definitely not happy,” he says. “Something needed to change.”

The U.S. involvement in Vietnam was escalating and Bobb wanted to serve his country. When he went in for a physical before Marines boot camp, doctors found a lump on his ribs, which was subsequently removed. Forty days post-surgery, he was in a grueling boot camp in San Diego.

Six others from Grand Ronde joined that year, including Leno, because they considered themselves to be “bad.”

“Boy, what a mistake that was,” Bobb says. “Being a brat, always getting what I wanted, that ended when I joined the Marines. You really find out quickly that you are not a bad ass.”

By this time, he and Connie were expecting their first child.

“I had a wife who wouldn’t give up on me, who saw the good in me and a community that would not allow me to destroy myself. It really does take a village. Eventually, a light will go on,” he says.

Asked about that challenging time, Connie describes it as “a test for sure.”

“But when we were being raised, you are in it for the long haul,” she says. “I came from a divorced family and so it was very important to keep us together.”

The couple celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary in December. They have three sons, Steve Jr., Billy and Cory, and 10 grandchildren ranging in age from 12 to 26.

“We will probably have some great-grandchildren before too long, but really, all grandchildren are great,” Bobb says.

Shortly after his first son was born, Bobb shipped out for Vietnam. After landing in the country in January 1970, Bobb immediately noticed two things: The aroma and heat.

“There is an odor that hangs over the country, almost like a garbage dump,” he says.

He was 20 years old.

Bobb, who was trained to work with munitions, was instead assigned to the infantry, which meant being directly in the battlefields, or in the case of Vietnam, swamps.

“You don’t get a cushy job when you arrive, you have to be in the crap,” he says.

Due to the danger, soldiers stayed mostly on secure bases when they weren’t on duty, which often meant heavy drinking to ease thoughts of what was going on around them and to pass the time.

“I woke up in the sand with mosquito bites all over me, passed out, more than once,” Bobb says. “It wasn’t good.”

Despite having automatic weapons fired at his head, getting lost on night patrol in the jungle and seeing death happening all around him, Bobb left Vietnam physically unscathed.

“Either I am extremely lucky or I was being saved for a higher purpose,” he says. “That is when you start believing in guardian angels.”

What Bobb saw and heard continues to affect him even 48 years later and he has never had guns in his home.

“I don’t even want to hear the sound,” he says. “I tried to get myself as far away from guns and killing as I could. When you have seen gruesome things like that, it leaves a permanent image in your mind.”

Before leaving the country, he stopped off at nearby Da Nang Air Base to visit Leno.

“We visited for just a few minutes, but it was great to see him there, like being at home,” Bobb says.

Leno agrees.

“Serving in Vietnam, when you have those connections, it is for life,” Leno says. “It was great to see him and know he was going home.”

In addition to their Tribal and military service connections, Leno’s wife, Liz, and Bobb’s wife, Connie, also are lifelong friends.

“Our kids grew up together,” Leno says. “We never stopped being friends.”

An artist for life

After a short stint as a welder upon his return from Vietnam, Bobb began pursuing his passion for art on a professional level. In 1972, he opened Bobb Art & Design, which specializes in custom auto painting. Much of his early influences come from Allen George, the father of current Tribal Council Secretary Jon A. George.

He also spent several years working as a truck and sign painter.

“I just do it for fun now,” Bobb says. “I do a lot of work for schools, charity work and auction items.”

His most recent work is the logo for the 25^th annual McMinnville Wine and Food Classic, which was held recently at the Evergreen Space Museum. He also recently re-painted the Bulldog logo in the gym at Willamina High School.

Bobb draws freehand instead of using a computer, so all revisions are done from scratch.

“I believe if you have a gift, you are obligated to share it in some way,” he says.

In the 1990s, he began sculpting and took his first professional class to delve into that medium. When a Tribal committee began fundraising for the West Valley Veterans Memorial, Bobb was asked by Leno, who was then on Tribal Council, to be the artist. Bobb also was part of the ad hoc committee that secured the $360,000 needed to build the memorial and did the Trail of Tears walk from outside Medford to Grand Ronde to help raise money in 2002.

The final Veterans Memorial design features a man and woman dressed in traditional Native attire reaching toward the sky surrounded by four black pillars representing the four branches of the armed forces – Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force.

Tribal members Courtney Galligher and Mark LaBonte posed in traditional regalia for the statue, which honors both male and female veterans.

“I designed it so that viewers would be looking up,” he says. “I saw one Native American memorial that was in the ground. I didn’t like that. When you are honoring someone, you should look up.”

The bronze sculpture was dedicated in May 2003. The original, smaller version of the sculpture is located in the foyer of Bobb’s house.

Connie says that although her husband may not always show it, he cares deeply about people.

“He has a real passion to help veterans and, as he has gotten older, he has become a lot more caring about people,” she says.

‘I have been very lucky’

Bobb says there was a time when the years seemed to drag on, but now that he is older, they are flying by.

When he reflects on his life, he says he feels very fortunate.

“I always think about how lucky I have been to do what I love for a living despite dealing with all of the health issues I have had,” Bobb says.

Over the years, Bobb has battled rheumatoid arthritis and now is blind in his left eye. His immune system stopped functioning for a time in the 1990s. He was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010 and has been in remission since 2013.

“I mean, how many times can you be so lucky?” Bobb says. “In my older age now, I have found out that it is not about what you acquire or may not acquire. As long as you have the love of family and friends, you shouldn’t sweat the other stuff.”