Bob Beach

What started as a part-time campus job during his undergrad years turned into an unforgettable lifelong career. With hard work and creative marketing, Bob Beach helped transform the University of Northern Iowa Book Store into a thriving campus operation, but it was his decades of generosity that would make a long-lasting impact at UNI. 

After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Beach enrolled at the Iowa State Teachers’ College, studying business education and picking up a job at the College Book Store along the way.

“In addition to excellent professors, I was fortunate to have two mentors who helped shape my thinking,” Beach said. “T. Wayne Davis and John Latta taught me how to work. They were bright men, with lots of energy and good ideas. I worked for them at the bookstore.”

After graduating, he went on to become president of the bookstore, where he spent the rest of his working career, owning and managing the store. 

Among his greatest marketing tactics was importing a double-decker bus from England to provide free transportation between College Hill and the UNI campus. The process involved a Russian seal ship that carried the bus 4,000 miles from London to Chicago, then Beach flew to Chicago and drove the bus home.

The bus did 15-minute runs around the UNI campus and College Hill for free, from one to five each afternoon, Monday through Saturday. The bus was also used for parent tours during summer orientation, chamber tours of the community, rides to local football games and once as a Welcome Wagon for coach Chuck Patten and his wrestlers as they landed at the airport. The bus ran from 1971 to 1973.

Other than his influence on the university bookstore, it was his decades of being a loyal Panther friend and long-time supporter that may be the most impactful. He worked to raise money to build the UNI Dome and the Campanile. In 1986, he chaired the fundraising committee to add 32 bells to the Campanile to create the Campanile’s full carillon. He also contributed to the campanile renovations in 1995 and 2022.

Beach was one of the first members of the UNI Athletic Club — the organization that would later become the Panther Scholarship Club and is known as the Ever Loyal Club today. In 2008, he was inducted into the UNI Athletics Hall of Fame. 

“Bob was highly respected for his volunteer activities at the University of Northern Iowa, but he shared with me that the one he was most surprised by and proud of was his induction into the UNI Athletics Hall of Fame,” said Noreen Hermansen, vice president for principal gifts. “Bob’s loyalty and dedicated support of Panther athletics provided the foundation for it to become a strong, competitive athletic program.”

Beach was a member of the UNI Foundation Board of Trustees for 20 years, serving as its president for 10. Hermansen worked with Bob in all of her roles at UNI.

 In their previous positions in residence, she recalls him hosting Holiday gatherings at the store for RAs. In admissions, he did everything from organizing the double-decker bus for orientation to arranging special shopping time with new students. 

Beach attended every UNI Homecoming since he began classes in 1947, a tradition he continued for decades. He also contributed to the UNI Foundation as a longtime donor.

He was recognized as the grand marshal of the UNI Homecoming Parade in 1992 and retired a few years later to travel with his wife, Rosemary.

Beach stayed involved in many areas of the community as well, such as president of the Cedar Falls Chamber of Commerce, president of the Western Home Foundation and president of the Century Club Board of Directors.

Beach was named the posthumous recipient of the 2026 Melendy Spirit Award, honoring his lifelong dedication to leadership and community service. 

As UNI celebrates its sesquicentennial, the milestones feel especially fitting for Bob Beach: the 50th anniversary of the UNI-Dome he helped fundraise, and the 100th year of Campanile, whose bells first rang just days before his birth on September 23, 1926.