Wallace "Wally" DOBBINS
Marriages
Anna Carolyn BUSH - 1939
Burial Details
Obituaries
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 9A Death Notice - January 12, 2011
Wallace “Wally†Dobbins, 91, Cedaredge, died Jan. 5, 2011, at Horizon’s Care Center. Services will be 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Olathe Cemetery.
Mr. Dobbins was a retired newspaper editor and publisher, college faculty member, administrator and rancher.
Survivors include one son, David of Cedaredge; one grandchild; and two great-grandchildren.
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 8A - January 12, 2011
Wallace "Wally" Dobbins January 6, 1920 – January 5, 2011 Wallace "Wally" Dobbins of Cedaredge died on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at Horizon's Care Center in Eckert, hours short of 91. He was a retired newspaper editor and publisher, college faculty member and administrator, and rancher. He was born January 6, 1920, in England, AR, the son of parents of diverse occupations. His mother, Lillian Meador Dobbins, was a third-generation journalist. His father, J. W. Dobbins, was an undertaker, as the profession was known in that era. Wallace attended public schools in England and graduated from England High School in 1936 after having begun his first employment in his future career, as high school news and sports reporter and "printer's devil" in 1934. He later attended College (now University) of the Ozarks in Clarksville, AR, for two-and-one-half years. In August 1939 he began work at the Johnson County Weekly Graphic, where he met Anna Carolyn Bush, the paper's society editor. With desks side-by-side they soon decided they would make a good team and were married three months later, beginning a partnership that lasted more than 66 years, until her death in August 2006. Soon after their marriage they embarked on journalistic ventures that took them elsewhere in Arkansas and also to Missouri, Texas, New Mexico and then to Colorado, where they would spend most of their years together. They published their own weekly newspapers in Raton, NM, Fruita and Olathe, CO, with time out during World War II for a year in the west-coast aircraft industry. In 1955, after a small-boat trip to Alaska, they moved to Fort Collins, CO, for Wallace to finish a college degree at Colorado A&M College (now CSU) that he had started in Arkansas. Planning to teach what he had been practicing much of his life, he earned a master's degree in English at Western State College in Gunnison, CO, while teaching freshman English classes. While working as editor of the Montrose (Colorado) Daily Press in 1958, he was offered a job at Mesa College (now Mesa State) in Grand Junction, CO, where for the next 22 years he had numerous teaching and administrative responsibilities. Always interested in young people, including 34 years in some connection with Boy Scouts, he kept in close contact with students by sponsoring various organizations, including Phi Theta Kappa honor fraternity as seminar leader at honors institutes and as national sponsors chairman. During business years he was active in civic organizations, including serving as president of his school district. At Mesa State College he was on numerous councils and committees, including the Administrative Council and the Athletic Council. He served as chair of the Building Names Committee. He was public relations director during the transition from two-year to four-year status. After retiring from the college in 1980, he spent the following years at the 255-acre ranch the family had owned near Cedaredge, CO, since 1961. Survivors include a son, David of Cedaredge, CO; a grandson, Dylan (Amri) of Grand Junction, CO; two great-grandchildren, Indica and Kytan Dobbins; and a niece and two nephews in California. Besides his wife, he was preceded in death by his parents, a sister and all of his first cousins. Concluding rites will be held at the Dobbins family plot in the Olathe Cemetery at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 15, 2011 with Pastors Jo DeVinny and Max Kendrick officiating. Arrangements are under the direction of Taylor Funeral Service and Crematory of Delta, CO. View the internet obituary and sign the online guest registry at taylorfuneralservice.com.
