James Noel Robb Obituary

James Noel Robb attended Lewis And Clark High School in Spokane, WA. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about James Noel Robb.

Graduation Year	Class of 1960
Date of Passing	Aug 05, 2023
About	We believe Dad would have said: If you know me, you know I’m no longer using my body as the holder for my mind, I didn’t get to finish all my projects I had written on my list, but I am proud to share the ones that I accomplished. As you look around this room I tried to leave a seed of knowledge to allow each of you to grow and build from. It truly is impossible to condense 81 orbits around the sun for a man who spent every day learning, exploring, experimenting, and sharing his knowledge with those around him. But here is an overview. James Noel was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma to Noel Neville and Pauline Louise (Hallman) Robb on March 7th, 1942. Later moving to Nacogdoches and Houston Texas (even taking the honor of being the last person in Texas to contract malaria according to the army doctor) before moving to Spokane, Washington. He became an avid reader of the Popular Mechanics magazine thanks to a customer he met while serving as the paper boy for the Spokane Chronicle for 2 years, 2 months and 3 days from 1954-56. If his time wasn’t spent tossing his triangular papers-to get more distance of course he was engulfed in his many science fair projects. We asked Dad, you probably knew him as Jim, if he had ever got in trouble and this is his story: in 5th grade he built a transistor radio (which cost $13 in that day) CK722 and put it in a little clear 1x4x6 case, gave reasons to the teacher like I couldn’t see the board and needed to sit closer just to get to the front of the class. There he could hook up his radio to a ground attached to the steam radiator at the front of the classroom. He stuffed the wire in a crack in the floor and held his hand over his ear, so he could listen to the World Series. This is where he got in trouble, so he thought, as the teacher called him out of the room only to be shown off to a group of individuals touring the school from India. Jim graduated from Lewis & Clark High School in Spokane, Washington in 1960. His school accomplishments were never ending, as he headed to AS Electronics Technology at OSU in 1962, Texas Instruments in Dallas Texas from 1963-64, received his Ham License KDQCBW, and then received his BS in Agricultural Economics at OSU 1967. A day before turning 25 Jim was drafted into the Army, serving in Vietnam for 19 months and 27 days - recognized highly as an expert in radar technology MOS 26D20 (GCA Radar R&M) US Army Signal School, GCA Radar NJ 1967. He was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Good Conduct Medal, and 2 Overseas Bars and was Honorably Discharged on March 5, 1973 with the rank of Specialist. He became a Life Member of VFW Post 11449. After coming home from his tour, Jim spent the upcoming years farming at the family farm at Danville. He was a pioneer farmer from 1968 to 2023. Jim met his lifetime partner, Trish Giesen, at the local Peter Pan store in Harper in 1973, and married her on April 6, 1974. Immediately becoming a family of 3, Jim, Trish and Lori welcomed John later that year. Knowing he needed more farm hands, Mark and Paula joined the crew a few years down the road. Jim went to the Center for Entrepreneurship at WSU in 1977 and when computers started to become more popular, he and Trish created Shoebox Computer Service in 1979 until 2000. One of Jims accomplishments was how he had grown "4 different grain crops on 1 acre in 1 year" using companion techniques. He farmed a little over 1100 acres and gave all the "plant produced oxygen" away for free. Jim was the first farmer in Kansas to grow cotton and to no-til in the area. He was planting 2 crops at the same time and same depth to see how one plant uses the other plant to grow and utilize each other. Over his life, Jim was quite proud to say he gave 114 pints of blood as a Red Cross Blood Donor. He was also a member of CERT and Weather Spotter for the county. The kids would say growing up was quite the adventure with him: waking them up in the wee hours of the morning to look up at the space station or comets going over, to be being pulled down the road with vehicles that had no brakes, to more stories then we can count. Jim traveled to 39 states and 9 Countries. He shared that with all of us, and wanted his kids to experience and learn from sight-seeing and adventures. Our sight-seeing persisted of- “let’s just stop by here for a minute” to a short detour this way, to a quick stop here and before we knew it, it was hours later. His rule was no trip was ever wasted if you learned something along the way. On August 5, 2023 at 7:02am, James Robb was out doing what he loved to do best, storm spotting and checking his rain gauges. He was heading home going south on 80 Ave. outside of Danville, and it was pouring rain. Jim was preceded in death by his parents, Noel and Pauline Robb; grandson Tyson Allan Robb; sister-in-law Karen Cerio; brother-in-law Richard Jelinek. He leaves behind his wife Trish of 49 years; children: Lori Eslinger (Toby), John Robb (Audra), Mark Robb (Stacey) and Paula Hicks (Shawn); Grandpa to Tonya Weaver (Tyler), Danielle, Keely, Marshall, Maci, Brandon, Trinity, Maddison, Mary Jackson (James), Justin, Emilee, Autumn; great-grandkids: Logan, Zander, Corvin, Jordan, Aria and Aiden; sister, Sharol Ghere (Clyde); niece Christina Ghere; in-laws: Joe Cerio, Doug Giesen (Charlene), Janice Roberts (JD), Susan Jelinek, and Mike Giesen; many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. My “elevator” speech----My name is Jim Robb. I live in Kansas, SW of Wichita, near the Oklahoma border. I farm and manage 51 million square feet of earth, from 250 feet above to 5000 feet below the surface. Each square foot currently produces 2 to 4 grain crops per year, and we give all the “plant produced oxygen” away for free. ‘Two million US farmers and ranchers help provide food stocks for “1 billion meals per day” to feed 333 million citizens.’