Robert Louis Rankin, known as Bob. passed away February 24, 2014 from multiple cancers at the age of 75 in Saint Luke's Hospice in Kansas City, Missouri.
He was born to Harvey W. Rankin and Helen E. Rankin in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania on January 17, 1939. Almost all of his childhood was spent in Tifton, where he founded the Tifton chapter of the Ground Observer Corps in the earlier 1950's, an arm of the United States Air Force Civil Defense network. That GOC chapter ultimately drew in a large number of Tifton young people into one of the most active chapters in that part of the state. He was active in the Boy Scouts in Troop 63, and attended the 1953 National Boy Scout Jamboree at Irvine Ranch, California. With Jim "Sonny" Hardy, K4HAV, he became an active amateur radio operator, K4GQN, and again helped inspire countless other Tifton teenagers to become amateur radio operators. Many of these were members of the Ground Observer Corps as well.
He graduated from Tifton High School in 1956, attended Emory University for his Bachelors degree, and acquired a Ph.D. degree in Linguistics at the University of Chicago in 1972. He spent 1966-68 as a Fulbright Fellow in Romania. He spent the rest of his life as a professor of Linguistics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, where he specialized in the study and preservation of Native American languages such as that of the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma. He was made an
honorary member of the Sioux Nation in recognition of his efforts.
He maintained his enthusiasm for amateur radio to the end, having acquired the new call sign W0NXN when he moved to Kansas. He became an active severe weather spotter in Kansas as part of his amateur radio service.
Bob is survived by his wife of 48 years, Carolyn Rankin of Tonganoxie, Kansas and his younger brother, Jim Rankin of Concord, California. Bob will be greatly missed. His keen sense of humor was a hallmark that all his friends will always remember.
The family requests that any remembrances or memorials for Bob be made as donations to organizations that fight prostate cancer, such as the American Cancer Society. His friends in Lawrence, Kansas will gather at a later date to remember him.