Donald Ward Robinson

1935 - 2021

Donald Ward Robinson passed from this life September 18, 2021, in Salt Lake City, Utah.



Born in Stanton, Nebraska, February 8, 1935 (in a chicken coop during a blizzard is what he told his daughters), Don graduated from Stanton High and landed a job as cub reporter at the Stanton Register. From there, he attended the University of Nebraska (GO HUSKERS!), studying journalism and lettering in baseball, and was then hired by the Fremont Tribune.

Don served in the US Army (1956-1958), stationed as a radio operator in Fulda, Germany, in Headquarters Battalion of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

He was Editor-in-Chief at the Green Sheet/Murray Eagle newspaper in Murray, Utah, 1965 to 1984, and subsequently copy editor at the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News.

Don's love of words manifested most often in puns, crossword solving, and love of word play. His favorite piece of advice: "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me."

He is survived by his wife, Betty; daughters Jane, Kelli, and Sara; sister Lois; grandchildren Angela, Heidi, Caitlyn, Frank, Lacey, and Robert; great-grandchildren Ashley and Abelina; Melody, Molly, Thomas, and Tucker.

Don was preceded in death by his parents, Harry Ray and Nellie "Nell" Gladys (Ward) Robinson, and brother Daryl Eugene Robinson.

In his own words:

"I earned only a Pfc. stripe in the Army, was inducted at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, served basic training at Fort Carson, Colorado, then nearly six months of advanced basic in high speed radio classes at The Southeastern Signal School (we called it Tessie Tech), just outside Augusta, Georgia -- January through June, 1957. In July, we boarded a train for New York, where we boarded the USS Randall for an enjoyable nine-day cruise that took us up the English Channel to the port of Bremerhaven, Germany. A train took us to central Germany to Fulda, in the state of Hesse, where I was stationed the next 15 months. I had regular shifts as radio operator, using mostly a telegraph key (Morse Code) to communicate with troops patrolling the border with East Germany, when the country was still separated between East and West. I was in Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment. From our barracks, we could see the mountains that divided East Germany from West Germany. It was often said that if World War Three were to start, it would likely be in what was called the Fulda Gap of those mountains."