This past Sunday, Robert “Bob” Irving Thomas, long-time Registrar and chapel organist of Covenant Theological Seminary, went home to be with his God and Savior. Bob loved students, jokes, hymnals, rubber-band pistols, the history of Kansas, good preaching, old organs…..and dogs.

My wife Esther and I arrived in St. Louis to attend Covenant Seminary in May of 1970. We both had to look for jobs and I had to take both English Bible and beginning Greek during the summer semester. Not many students around during the summer, but one of people that EVERYONE got to know well was Registrar Bob Thomas.

Our second year there, John Buswell, then Dean of Students, asked Esther and me if we would be willing to live on campus and if I could be the ‘Dorm Daddy’ for the men’s dorms. I was 34 years old (did 12 years in the Navy before seminary) so I was ‘big brother’ age for the single male students – about 5 of them. There was one vacant room in the dorm, so I set up an office there and tried to study when I wasn’t caught up in dorm fun. If memory holds they included Stan Armes, Legree Finch, Rick Raines, Howard Kelley; there may have been one more.

Esther and I lived in the 3 room apartment on the 2nd floor over the dining room area in Edwards. We didn’t have our first child until April of that semester, but we did bring our first ‘baby’ with us – our Cocker Spaniel, Smokey. Needless to say she was spoiled by everyone on campus – but no one came to the level of Bob Thomas, who fell madly in love with her. He was forever telling the story of how Smokey – who pretty much had the run of the grounds – flushed out a homeless man who was sleeping down the back side of the hill, just past the Rayburn’s house. For years afterwards every time we met, Bob’s first question was about Smokey.

Bob was a gentle soul, but always with a twinkle in his eye. And he was always willing to go the second mile if there was any way he could help us with class schedules and understanding when it would be wise to let a class wait for a year when there would be more time for it.

One FB friend recalled that Bob cared for students in the era of index card registrations and ink-penned report cards. The school was then small enough that he would occasionally re-arrange the entire class schedule (or jigger graduation requirements just a mite) to make sure that a single student could graduate on time.

Others are sharing remembrances of Bob of Facebook as well. One story tells of Bob and his good friend, Old Testament Professor Bob Vasholz, who kept a running banter going for many years, seeing who could tell a more outlandish tale on the other. Students and professors alike gathered just to see who would get the last word and largest laugh. At one time, Bob Vasholz showed up for a job interview deliberately wearing a tie that Bob Thomas despised. Thomas welcomed Vasholz into the house where the meeting was to be, only to quickly turn to him and snip off the tie with a pair of scissors.

Bob was born on January 6, 1929 in St. Francis, Kansas to Rev. Burrus and Marie Thomas. He grew up there, with an older brother and sister, being active in the church and its organizations, and helping with the family dairy operations. He developed a lifetime interest in his home community. Bob graduated from the Augusta, Kansas High School, from Tabor College, and from Covenant Theological Seminary. For 12 years he pastored the Cumberland Community Church in Augusta. For more than 22 years he served as Registrar at Covenant Seminary.

His funeral service will take place at Covenant Presbyterian Church at 11:00 on Monday, December 5. Visitation will occur from 10:00-11:00 in the church sanctuary. In lieu of flowers, Bob requested that all donations be made to Covenant Theological Seminary, the institution he loved dearly and served for many years.