1927-2008

He was the son of a farmer, born two years before the onset of the Great Depression and raised to know the value of a hard day's work. He was a soldier in the Army's 9th Infantry, sent to Korea in 1951, who learned the value of life on Bloody Ridge.

He was a student and a teacher. He was a politician and a lobbyist. He was a man of God, of family and of community.

Robert O'dell Bowen, a former state lawmaker, tax commissioner, business regulator and lobbyist, died Tuesday at age 81. The Spanish Fork native was an eternal optimist not in spite of the hardships he faced, but because of them, according to friends and family.

Bowen's daughter, Marsha Morgan, said her father had a way of making everyone he met feel they were family.

"He built people up and let them know how good they were and how much he appreciated them," Morgan said. "He did that with his own family and with everyone he met. He'd always say, 'I'm gonna put you in my will.' Now, the family's all waiting to see who will come knocking at the door."

Among those Bowen touched is Salt Lake City Councilman Eric Jergensen, who called Bowen a "mentor" who helped him learn to balance public and private life, and on whom he leaned during times of personal struggle.

"He was just always so positive, so very upbeat," Jergensen said.

Morgan said her father's remarkable optimism was born of his Depression-era childhood and of the experiences he had in Korea, where, after serving in the infantry in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, he was assigned an office job and was responsible for writing letters of condolence to families of fallen soldiers.

"He never forgot those things," Morgan said. "Having survived it, he knew that every minute of life counts. He took that back with him."

A lifelong Democrat who first was elected to the Utah House in 1970, then later to the state Senate, Bowen's dreams had been reinvigorated in his final years -- even as his body was beginning to slow -- by the notion that his party had nominated a black man as its candidate for president.

"He had not been in real good health, but he was pretty excited about the possibility that Barack Obama was going to be president," Morgan said.

Bowen was preceded in death by his wife of 58 years, Lucile Livingston Bowen, and eight of his nine siblings. He is survived by his second wife, Billie Lou King Moses, and three children, 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be Monday at 1 p.m. in the Spanish Fork Canyon View LDS Stake Center.

mlaplante@sltrib.com