August 23, 2015
L. T. C. Robert L. Fellows, USA Ret., age 83, of Council Bluffs, passed away August 23, 2015.
Director of Army Instruction for OPS until 1994.
Bob is survived by son, Michael M. Fellows and wife, Kathy, of Council Bluffs; sister, Ruth L. Bernhardt, of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.; brothers, Capt. Charles D. Fellows, USN Ret. and wife, Alix, of Alexandria, Va. and Daniel E. Fellows and wife, Marie, of Iowa City, Iowa; nephews, nieces others relative and friends.
Graveside services 10:30 a.m., Thursday, August 27, 2015, Sidney, Iowa Cemetery. Visitation with family 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday, at the Funeral Chapel. In lieu of flowers, memorials will go to the American Cancer Society or Hospice with Heart in Glenwood, Iowa.
Years after they had gone through ROTC training at their Omaha high schools, people would come up to Robert Fellows to tell him how the experience had shaped their lives.
Some would tell him his instruction was the first step in a military career, said Fellows’ son, Michael. Some would recall one of his lessons on life or one of his catchphrases that had carried them through a tough moment.
“Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll get the job done” — that was a classic, his son said.
Robert L. Fellows, a retired Army combat veteran who was overseeing about 1,500 ROTC cadets a year for Omaha Public Schools in the 1980s and early 1990s, died Sunday after one last battle, with cancer. He was 83.
“He liked having a connection with the kids,” many of whom, now adults, attended Fellows’ graveside service Thursday in Sidney, Iowa, his son said. “I’ve been having phone calls from various students. ... It’s a tribute to what he’s done with his life.”
That life began June 30, 1932, in Hastings, Iowa. Fellows graduated from high school not far away, in Walnut. He attended the University of Iowa, then began a 25-year career in the Army in 1953. He married Bonnie Bromley, a Sidney native he met at college, in 1955. She died a decade ago.
Army service took Fellows into combat in Vietnam and into the intervention in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s as well as to posts in South Korea, Germany and the United States, his son said.
Retired as a lieutenant colonel at age 44, he soon began teaching military skills to Omaha high schoolers.
“He was a no-nonsense guy. He didn’t mince words,” said his daughter-in-law, Kathy Fellows, but he was generous and social. “Everybody loved him.”
Survivors also include a sister, Ruth Bernhardt; two brothers, Charles and Daniel; and several nieces and nephews.