Mr. Bob Hickman

On Friday, October 6, 2023, James Robert “Bob” Hickman went home to make beautiful music and sing with the angels. He was 91. He was born in Centerville, Missouri, on New Year’s Eve, 1931, to Dewey and Dixie Dunham Hickman, both educators. Dewey, who had been a Marine in World War I, had been in the first training class at Parris Island, SC. He was a Principal and later School Superintendent for several small school districts in and around Centerville. He and Dixie, Bob, and Bob’s older brother, Bill, lived there, in the Ozark foothills, until they moved to Newburg, Missouri, where, even though it was during the Depression, Dewey amazingly acquired the funding for, and oversaw the building of, a beautiful new high school that is still used to this day. Bob started school in Newburg at age 5, but was moved up to 2nd grade before his 6th birthday. While he was still in grammar school, Dewey purchased the local newspaper (The Newburg Democrat ) and made Bob and Bill the official “Society” reporters for the newspaper, where Bob got “a real hankering for journalism.” Just before World War II, the family bought a farm in Rolla, Missouri, where Bob learned how to milk cows, feed chickens, and WORK on the farm. Two years later, they moved into town where Bob’s father ran for State Legislator and won, and the boys were allowed to be visiting Pages for the Legislature. Later, when his Dad ran for Congress, Bob was active in his campaign, while still a teenager. When Bob was 15, his mother, an accomplished musician and teacher who “played every instrument she could get her hands on,” bought him a used saxophone and, within the year, he was playing sax and clarinet with The Five Ambassadors, a popular band made up of much older professional musicians than Bob. Bob always remained involved with his music, and later served as Band Leader, vocalist, saxophonist, or clarinetist in some of South Carolina’s best bands, with a repertoire of big band, jazz, country, swing, and pop music. Shortly after turning 16, being the only “cheap labor in Rolla whose voice had already changed,” Bob got a job as News Announcer, DJ, and clean-up crew for Rolla’s only radio station, KTTR, which broadcast to 8 counties. He was still 16 when he entered college (School of Mines in Rolla, and later Southwest Missouri State College in nearby Springfield). After two years of college, he knew he wanted to go to the University of Missouri School of Journalism, “the best Journalism school in the country” but he lacked the funds, so he took a one-year working break, where he taught 31 kids in first through eighth grades in a one-room schoolhouse in the hills of Missouri. After the Korean War broke out, he married Ann Ramsey, a teacher at a nearby school, and enlisted in the Air Force, where he became a linguist with the US Air Force Security Service, stationed in Germany. Ann went with him to Germany, and then “shared his life, his love, and all his adventures” for over 50 years until she passed away in 2008. They had three children: Dr. Melissa “Lisa” Hickman Barlow (David), James Robert Hickman II, and Kathy Hickman Brown (Jimmy), who sadly predeceased her father in 2013. The Security Service worked hand-in-hand with the US National Security Agency (NSA), gathering intelligence by listening in on Russian and satellite military radio communications. To get him ready, the Air Force sent Bob to Syracuse University for a full year of intense study of the Russian language. He graduated as Valedictorian of his class, and remarkably, delivered his 5-minute-long valedictory speech entirely in Russian. After the war, he returned to the University of Missouri, where he was graduated as Outstanding Male Graduate in Journalism. While there, he was employed as Assistant News Director at KOMU-TV, a commercially owned television station that was (and still is) broadcast from the University of Missouri. He was the only student involved in the actual news broadcasts of that station, and the valuable experience he gained there created many opportunities for him later. From then on, he worked at two outstanding television (plus radio) news operations in Louisville, Kentucky (WHAS), and Kansas City, Missouri (KCMO), both large CBS affiliates. In 1960, when WIS-TV’s Program Director in Columbia, SC, telephoned a friend in Louisville, hoping for a recommendation for a good News Director, he was told that “the person he needed to talk to was no longer in Louisville, but could be reached at KCMO, and that his name was Bob Hickman.” The rest is history. After he received a phone call and made a visit to Columbia, Bob became News Director and News Anchor at WIS-TV (and radio). He was welcomed by the media community, and soon after joining WIS, was twice elected President of the SC Chapter of the Sigma Delta Chi Professional Journalism Society. In 1965, Gov. Robert McNair hired Bob as News Secretary to assist in the Governor’s re-election campaign. After Governor McNair won the election, Bob returned to WIS, and remained News Director and Anchor until 1967, when he was tapped to become Executive Director of the Governor’s prized newly-created State agency, the SC Dept. of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism. Over the next six years, Bob and his Commission established the entire Welcome Center complex for the state of SC, renovated and reopened existing State Parks and created many new ones, and made tourism SC’s leading economic industry. In 1973, Bob moved to Santee, SC, to become General Manager of a private real estate development firm, where he helped craft and promote the resort and recreational explosion that occurred there. Later, he retired to Elloree, SC, where he was honored to be the Master of Ceremonies at the Elloree horse Trials for 45 years, helped in the creation of the Elloree Museum, dabbled in resort real estate sales, taught Adult Sunday School at Elloree Methodist Church, and was elected leader of the Masonic Lodge. In 2015, he married Kay Jones McClanahan of Columbia who still had a desperate school-girl crush on him from having watched him on television while she was in college. Kay, a Forensic Chemist, was SLED’s first female Agent, and Bob always quipped that he would send her first to check on it if he heard a noise outside at night. They were soul-mates as they lived on Homestead Farms in Hopkins and Eastover with their horses and other beloved critters, and where they enjoyed farming, fishing, and God’s beautiful creations. Bob also loved other people, especially the members of First Baptist Church of Columbia and its choir and Elloree Methodist Church, all his broadcaster buddies, and his many other friends and family. He also treasured his new relatives that he got from Kay, and was survived by Kay’s two children, Kelly Brian McClanahan (Katie), and Dr. Ana Mari McClanahan Schaefer (J.D.). They also share 9 precious grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren, with 1 on the way. Bob’s brother, John William “Bill” Hickman (Rita), 94, a retired marketing executive with GE, also survived Bob, and still performs in stage plays and musicals in New York. After their marriage, Bob and Kay formed “The Patriots” band to play for veterans throughout the state, and Bob convinced Kay, a long-ago vocalist whose only experience in this century had been in the choir, to do vocals with the band. The results were magical until, sadly, the shut-downs of the pandemic brought an end to their music. A service to celebrate Bob’s life will begin at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in Boyce Chapel at First Baptist Church in Columbia, and the family will receive friends there beforehand from 12:30-2:00 PM. A burial service with military honors will follow in the Mausoleum Chapel at Greenlawn Cemetery on Garners Ferry Rd. Shives Funeral Home, Trenholm Road Chapel, is assisting the family.

Tributes

Mr. Bob Hickman

December 31, 1931 - October 6, 2023