Robert Bohlken was chairman of the speech and theatre department at Northwest Missouri State University from 1970 to 2000 — a period when the historic 1910 theatre in the college’s administration building was destroyed in a dramatic fire in 1979. Today, the Ron Houston Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1984.
The July 24, 1979, fire collapsed the entire north wing of the Administration building, including its Little Theatre and the main theatre, and that wing has never been rebuilt.
He was born in 1935 in Nebraska City, Nebraska. He received a Bachelor of Science in Education from Peru State College in 1959 in Nebraska, then a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska, and a PhD from the University of Kansas before moving to Maryville in 1969.
He is on the Nodaway County Stairway of Stars.
Articles:
ObituaryJanuary 14, 1935 — August 22, 2025
Induction into Stairway of Stars (Nodaway News July 27, 2018)