Bob
Thomas
Bob Thomas, Paradise Valley, Nevada (courtesy
Thomas family)
Bob Thomas (1920-2010)
Bob Thomas was born December 1920 in Snelling, California. Bob was
one of 5 children. Bob grew up riding and working on the ranch which
was situated in Central California’s prime cattle country on the
western edge of the Sierras. By age 12, he was sure of what he wanted
to do in life. He wanted “to cowboy and fly an airplane”. He would
succeed at both. Bob learned to rope and ride early in life and
given his central California roots, he learned in the vaquero style,
which meant that his eventual move to Nevada’s great basin and its
buckaroo style were familiar to him. Bob’s formative years riding
horseback on 20 to 40 mile circles a day as a buckaroo were exciting
and full. During these years he learned to rope and by the time
he was an adult, he rarely missed a loop.
He enlisted in the Air Guard in January 1942; but as he recalls,
“the US was so unprepared to go to war that they sent me back to
the ranch until August 1942 when they were finally ready for me.”
Bob trained in San Antonio and Corsicana, TX in the P-51 Mustang.
Bob spent much of his military career in the European Theatre of
WWII and flew 85 combat missions before being shot down over Saint
Lo, France. He brought his plane down low and then parachuted out,
close enough to friendly troops so that he was able to make it back
into friendly territory. This experience helped put life into perspective
for Bob, so during a break between tours of duty, he returned to
the States and on February 13, 1945, he married his longtime sweetheart
Linnea. As the war in Europe drew to a close, his squadron was being
prepared for a move to the Pacific. They were actually in the staging
area when word reached them that the Atom Bomb had been dropped
and Japan had finally surrendered. Bob was shipped home instead
of to Okinawa, Japan.
The call of true ranch life kept pulling at Bob and in 1956, he
located and purchased the old Cathcart Ranch in Paradise Valley,
Nevada. Bob was fond of saying that he felt lucky to have arrived
in Paradise before barbed wire and maintained roads, “when wagons
still went out.” His first years were spent repping for his place
on the Ninety-Six Ranch Wagon. During this time, he recalls mustanging
with George Abel and riding with other Buckaroo Hall of Famers.
Bob was always impressed with the Indian buckaroos he rode with
as he liked their easy style and their deadly accuracy with a rope.
When Bob recalled great days riding, he mentioned riding the Buttermilk
allotment helping son Keith, and of great camp stews made by Linnea
and his old friend Les Stewart. He also recalled the fun he had
mustanging in the early days. He loved long rides and said he never
tired of the “Charlie Russell skies” out on our deserts. He said
his saddle was more comfortable than any chair he owned and he’d
just as soon stay planted in it. Bob likened breaking a horse to
flying an airplane. “In breaking a horse, you want to try and get
the best possible moves you can out of it. It’s the same when you’re
flying a plane, I’d say there are a lot of similarities between
the two.” Bob was still taking the buck out of horses well into
his mid-eighties
In 1983, Bob was successfully elected to Nevada Cattlemen’s 100,000
Miles in the Saddle Club. During his long career, he also served
many terms as President of the Nevada Farm Bureau, and was named
Nevada’s Agriculturist of the Year by the University of Nevada.
Bob’s way of working, ethics and life have inspired many in the
Paradise Valley community. Many of the men who’ve become the “old
guard” of ranching in the Valley, came up listening to and learning
from Bob. Bob has been a great mentor and example to many of his
friends and neighbors. He is a shining example of our “greatest
generation”.
His advice to the younger generation, “If you don’t love it, don’t
get into it. But if you do, there is a good future for anybody willing
to make it their life’s work. Find the right ranch, run the right
number of cattle, don’t try to be smarter than Mother Nature and
you’ll make money.”
Bob Thomas passed away a few day before he was elected as inductee in
September 2010; he was 89.
