Today's Featured Biography

 
Bobby Bishop

After graduation, I enlisted into the Marine Corps and stayed in for almost 8 years. Looking back, those were probably the most exciting years of my life. During those years, I was able to enjoy the beachs of France and Cuba, the ancient ruins in Greece and Italy, the exotic foods of Thailand and the Phillippines. When I got home from Vietnam in 1973, I married Pam. We were married a month before the Marines sent me off to be a Marine Corps recruiter. After recruiting in New Orleans for a year, I was transferred to the Pasadena, TX, Marine Recruiting office. In 1975, I was the Marine Corps Recruiter of the year and was meritoriously promoted to Gunnery Sgt. (E-7). At the time of promotion, I was the youngest GySgt. in the Marine Corps.

While stationed in Pasadena, my oldest son, Shane, was born. When he was 6 months old, I chose to get out of the Marines. If I had stayed in, I would have spent most of the next 3 years being deployed overseas. Over the next 8 years, we had three other children (Chris, Jerod and finally a girl,Kayla). Pam was bound and determined we were going to have a daughter.

In 1976, after getting out of the Marines, I went to work for Exxon Chemicals in Baytown as an Instrument Technician. It did not take them long to realize I could not fix anything, so they made me a supervisor. Eventually they decided I was not a good supervisor, so they made me an Instrument Engineer.

In 1992, I took an early retirement from Exxon. During this time frame we owned an office supply and a formal wear store. The formal's store was very successful. Both Good Morning America and NBC's Today Show featured the store on their shows. Pam and I sold our business's in 1995 and went into retirement.

In 1999, we had two sons in the Marines and one working in Houston. We packed the household items and with our daugther in tow, we moved to East Texas.

Once the daughter graduated from high school, she married a Marine and moved off to Virginia. Empty nest blues hit, and Pam decided to go back to college. She graduates May 2008 with a degree in Nursing. She may want to work, but I enjoy retirement to much.

Right now, my time is spent trying to maintain our 25 acres. Most weekends, you will find me doing Chuck Wagon style cooking somewhere.

UPDATE - June 2014. We have moved back to Deer Park. I no longer do Chuck Wagon Style cooking but Pam continues to work as a Nurse. Our two oldest sons still live in Pasadena. Our youngest son is about to retire out of the Marine Corps and our son in law say he will stay for 4 more years before he retires. We have a herd of grandkids, I think it is a total of 15. Life is good!

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