User:BobHibbs

User BobHibbs, whose full name is Robert Gordon Hibbs, has developed "local history" research and writing as a retirement hobby after spending an adult lifetime in Iowa City along with his wife of 50 years, Margaret Kincheloe Hibbs, a retired nurse and patient representative at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. After completing a writing degree at the University of Iowa during 1965, he spent much of his working lifetime as a property owner and manager. During retirement he has written and published seven books, including four of Iowa City history, spent five years as a volunteer weekly history columnist for the Iowa City Press-Citizen, and during 2012 was working on another local history. He has written more than 350 articles published in the local newspaper and elsewhere. For several years he has portrayed Robert Lucas (1781-1853) a former Ohio governor who served as the appointed first governor of Iowa Territory (1838-1841) during the annual Memorial Day weekend opening of the governor's retirement home in Iowa City named Plum Grove Historic House, now owned by the State of Iowa under management of the Johnson County Historical Society.

Hibbs was born in Villisca during late 1941, and raised in nearby Clarinda in far southwest Iowa. He moved to Iowa City as a university student in 1961, and stayed a lifetime.

His most extensive local history research effort to date involved preparation and publication during 2009 of a biography of Iowa City artist Mildred Pelzer, later Mildred Pelzer Lynch, who was described during the 1930s as Iowa City's most famous artist. She painted eight large historic murials for Hotel Jefferson in downtown Iowa City that became widely recognzied. One of her flower oils was published as the cover of the July 1934 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. A recognzied painter in her own right, she also served as publicist for Grant Wood during the period he painted and sold his American Gothic oil, perhaps the most widely recognized American painting. Hibbs titled the resulting biography Historic Scenes by Mildred Pelzer 1934, which remains in print.

Hibbs' other Iowa City histories include Iowa City a sense of place (2001, Iowa City a sense of place Volume 2 (2006), both published in hardcover editions by the Iowa City newspaper, and Iowa City (2010) in paperback in the Arcadia Publishing "Postcard History Series." He also prepared more than 200 brief illustrated biographies which he compliled into three books published for anniversaries at his high school alma mater in Clarinda, and for the defunct Missoui Methodist School of Nursing in St Joseph.

Hibbs also authored 100 of 150 biographies of important local "Fabulous 150" newsmakers during the 1860-2010 period and published by the Iowa City Press-Citizen to mark its sesquicentennial. They can be found at http://www.press-citizen-media.com/150/index2.html