Graveside Services for Robert Edward Graalman Sr., 91, of Fairview will be Monday (Aug. 19) at 2 o’clock at the Rose Lawn Cemetery, 1 mile east of Okeene on Highway 51. The Reverend Chris Ewbank will officiate. Arrangements are by Fairview Funeral Home, Inc.

Visitation will be Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 1 pm to 6 pm Fairview Funeral Home, Inc.

Any mention of extreme weather in Oklahoma prompted the late Otto Graalman to recount the Great Blizzard that hit Blaine County on February 25, 1922, trapping his father, the Rev. Edward Graalman, at one of his country churches and preventing his return to Okeene to welcome the son born to Otto and Laura that day. More than a week passed before he met Robert Edward Graalman, whose coda to his winter arrival in Okeene was his summer passing in his home in Fairview on August 14.

The 20 rural miles between the towns of his birth and death belie the breadth and depth of Bob’s journey marked so by devotion to family and service to community, church and country. Bob's legacy is his proving that life need not be defined or narrowed by place or circumstance. By savoring moments great and small and by respecting individuals of all stripes who had a gift or talent to share -- and by emphasizing the great equalizers of reading, travel, sports and the arts – he rejected the notion of geographic or intellectual chauvinism. For instance, he applauded a Fairview High School band concert as enthusiastically as the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. And his praise for a good hamburger at a newly discovered Oklahoma roadside cafe compared in tenor to the report of the lunch at the U.S. Ambassador's London residence in 1996 with Okeene High School friend Shirley Grinnell and husband William Crowe, ambassador to the United Kingdom at that time. Golf with sand “greens” at the Fairview Lakeside course, tennis on the high school’s concrete courts, basketball games from Fairview peewee tournaments to the collegiate championships received the same zeal.

Bob left Okeene at age 16 for Oklahoma A & M, where he joined Beta Theta Pi fraternity and let it be known that he wanted to be a foreign diplomat. The University of Minnesota offered the coursework he wanted, so he transferred in 1940, graduating in 1942 with a degree in political science.

During the summer of 1941 in Okeene, he met Margaret Lee Shorter, “the new girl in town.” They wed on May 31, 1943 in Richmond, VA, during the weekend between the end of his Navy basic training and his assignment to the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Colgate University. He received his Commission as Ensign in September 1945 after completing the U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipman’s School at Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.) and then was posted to Hawaii.

Upon his return, Bob was recruited to the Navy’s Japanese Language School that had started at the University of California-Berkeley, moved to the University of Colorado, and then expanded to Oklahoma A & M, where Bob, coincidentally, was assigned. The classified background of that program’s postwar intent has only recently been described, including the school’s closing after the Army received the Congressional authority for military intelligence in Asia. After Bob’s June 1946 graduation from the language school, he ended his active duty with an Honorable Discharge. He and Margaret moved that fall to the University of Wisconsin in Madison for the graduate program in international relations program, but the start of a family prompted their return to Okeene, where Bob entered his banking career at the State Guaranty Bank. Robert Jr. was born in 1947; Nancy arrived in 1951.

Bob and family moved to Fairview in 1953 when he joined the Fairview State Bank, eventually becoming president. His commitment to making a difference in the community led to years of service at the First Baptist Church (choir member and teacher of Adult Men‘s Sunday School Class for which he spent hours in preparation to teach historical perspectives that went beyond religion); Fairview school board (he headed the board in the 1950s when Fairview's "iconic" gymnasium -- later dubbed the EchoDome -- was built ), Lions Club (pianist for nearly 50 years), civic work (City Treasurer); and the Fairview Public Library (president of the library board for more than two decades). Fairview’s remarkable library, his own extensive collection, and mail orders from The Mysterious Press in New York City remained a source of pleasure well into his 80s, with stacks of books always close at hand.

Bob’s greatest energy and generosity were reserved for his family for whom no mile or degree of effort seemed too great: He crawled through sand plum thickets in 100-degree weather to get Margaret prime fruit for her jelly; rigged up lights for late-night basketball for Bob Jr. and Nancy; attended academic events for Bob Jr. and choral concerts of daughter-in-law Diane at Oklahoma State; traveled for granddaughter Sarah’s musical performances; served as “location manager” for four days when he and Margaret hosted grandson Travis’s 15-member film crew; and flew at a moment’s notice to Grandparents’ Day, science fairs and dance recitals in San Francisco for granddaughters Meg and Julia.

But perhaps his greatest happiness began every February when the brochures arrived and correspondence commenced to plan the summer family vacation. He was meticulous in his itineraries which always prompted the question -- answered with just a Cheshire grin -- of how it was that the route home from the West Coast in June 1960 “just happened” to bring the Graalmans to Denver on the Sunday of the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, and would Nancy and Margaret mind if he and Bobby walked “just a few holes” with Arnold Palmer. Those hours turned into many, many more as Bob and Bobby were among the small initial “army” that grew to witness Arnie’s famous charge and victory. Starting in the mid-1960s, the trips throughout the U.S. and Canada gave way to extensive travel through both toured an extremely isolated regions of Mexico.

Bob’s retirement from banking in 1992 allowed him to both “stay home” to devote untold hours to the conservation of Squirrel Hollow and to go abroad as he and Margaret began traveling internationally. His impressive vigor allowed him to continue strenuous outdoor activity -- including playing competitive tennis-- into his mid-80s.

Only with the loss of Margaret in 2009 did Bob’s vitality decline. His sense of humor never left, however, as even in his last days he was reminding children and grandchildren: “If you’re ever in Fairview, Oklahoma, stop by, and I’ll put you on my schedule.”

In his last years he was blessed by the care and love of Brenda Shelley for whom the family offers singular gratitude. Darlene Devlin and Barbara Devlin additionally brought extraordinary attention and support to Bob that will be remembered forever.

Bob is survived by children Robert Jr. and his wife, Diane of Stillwater; Nancy of Calistoga, CA; grandchildren Sarah of New York City, Travis and his wife Rachelle of Venice Beach, CA, Meg of Bozeman, MT (Montana State University graduate school); and, Julia of Calistoga (UC-Berkeley).

Donations in Bob’s memory may be made to the Fairview Public Library.