Like his friends, I always called him Bob except when Connie answered the phone,  and I would ask if “Robert was available.” Just a thing, and I have no idea why I did it. 
 

Our paths might never have crossed had I not started this newspaper but Bob was one of my first phone calls after I put the red, white, and black Gazette newspaper racks out during May of 2001. We talked and he took out an ad for Connie’s Country Casuals in our very first issue in June of that same year. The ads ran in every issue until he and Connie closed their store.
 

As many of you will remember, in the beginning we ran a front page resident story and photo in each issue. This was a “human interest” type thing that would introduce people on the Ranch, and I still remember that the issue featuring Bob and Connie was on the “stands” around the Ranch when the morning of September 11, 2001 dawned.
 

Bob was the leader of a small group that started the Holly Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. I remember those early meetings of merchants and business owners in the back room of Connies in the evenings after the day’s business was over. Plans were made and a corporate charter was filed. By Laws were hammered out, and a new organization was given birth. The biggest annual event to date is Christmas Magic where Santa parachutes in on the first Saturday of December, and this was all Bob’s idea. He was the Chamber’s Executive Director with the mail and phone calls coming to both his home and business.
 

Bob loved the Ranch and in the early days attended the “B” Board meetings. He was very active and worked tirelessly to elect the new “B” Boards in both the 2005 and 2006 elections that have led to many of the positive changes on the Ranch. 
 

He would always pass along  things to me  that he received from Zionsville, Indiana, his hometown. Many of those ideas were incorporated into the Gazette. Most visits were made in Bob’s famous “cluttered office” where only he knew where things were. Much kidding went on between us over the years, and I profited from having someone that I could discuss my problems with. Bob was always willing to listen and would spend as much time as needed to help out.
 

One of the only things about Bob Reynolds that I never understood was that he didn’t like tomatoes. I thought everyone liked tomatoes. I knew Bob Reynolds, and Bob Reynolds was a friend of mine. In fact, he was my best friend on the Ranch!    W.C.