FRESNO STATE -- Howard Hobbs PhD has covered virtually every news event during his more than 50 years in journalism. He stepped down on March 6, 1981 after 19 years as anchorman and managing editor of the national edition of the Daily Republican Newspaper.
     Well remembered for his unflappability under pressure, Hobbs' writing accomplishments have won him acclaim and trust from area journalism colleagues and international readers alike.
     Born in Kansas City, Missouri on May 28, 1935, Hobbs began his career in journalism in 1953 as a campus correspondent for The Collegian Newspaper at Fresno State.
     He then joined the US Marine Corps and was assigned to Fleet Marine Force duty in the Far East of Japan. Hobbs rapidly rose in rank to Company Sergeant and was later released from active duty in 1957 when Lois E. Creighton and Howard E. Hobbs were married. Lois was a June graduate education major.
     She embarked upon a lifelong teaching career in Fresno area schools while he returned to his Fresno State studies with the financial scholarship under the GI Bill where he finished academic work on joint major in Social Science & Journalism. 
    He continued to work as the Bulldog Newspaper editor after graduation. He was a recipient of a number of prestigious honors, scholarships and grants while attending Fresno State, including breaking new ground in research on thinking in his widely read Master's Thesis, The Reading Process Affect, and his wining academic standing as the distinguished Hoover Institution Fellow at Stanford University and a second Claremont scholarship.
     Hobbs is credited with uncovering and thorough documentation of the clandestine Nazi Party Party affiliation (1936-38) of a troubled Fresno State professor, Karl Falk.  Hobbs, while seeking a Fresno State student press interview, inadvertently tipped-off Professor Karl Falk who suddenly turned dark and moody demanding Hobbs remain silent on the facts Hobbs uncovered on pain of retaliation by the Fresno State administration.
    Hobbs asked Falk to be more specific and if his comments were official or only off-the record. Falk was outraged.
    During the first week in June 1959, Falk called Hobbs into the Department Office, closed the door, and told him - " All right I have examined your transcript and I note that you have more than enough units completed for graduation. But, I called you in here to say to your face, you know the reason for this [investigating story on Falk's Nazi Party implications] and I have seen to it that you will never graduate from this institution with a Bachelor's Degree in Social Science."
     With the gracious intervention of Fresno State Social Science Professor, Lester Roth, in August 28, 1959, Hobbs received mail, the contents of which were his official Fresno State College Bachelor's Degree bearing the words,"...with all the rights and privileges and honors thereunto appertaining Given by the Department of Education of the State of California at Fresno, this twenty-eighth day of August, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine. Bearing signatures of Gov. Edmund G. Pat Brown,and of President of the College, Arnold Joyal, and of Director of Education Roy Simpson -- Major: Social Science.
    Following his departure on June 6, 1958 from the Fresno State, Hobbs was the only journalist to be named among the top "most courageous persons" in student newspaper publishing in Fresno State history.
    The University of Southern California awarded Hobbs honors of Lifetime Membership in the USC General Alumni Association, this month, after publication of his recently completed doctoral dissertation based in part on the Karl Falk story leading to Hobbs' discourse on "The Moral Domain" (400 pages). He continues to write daily columns.
     Things turned from incredibly bad to unbelievably worse by 1969. Adding fuel to the fire, on October 28, 1969, Karl Falk was appointed as acting president. After only five days, Falk announced a massive realignment of the college structure.
    We then saw Dale Burtner, the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, reassigned and replaced with Phillip Walker. Harold Walker, the executive vice president, was reassigned and replaced with James Fikes.
    These reassignments once again caused a rift in the campus community, resulting in even more protests. Falk immediately alternated staff and instigated layoffs. Then followed curtailing of funds in the Experimental College, the Ethnic Studies Program and the Educational Opportunities Program.
    These changes resulted in violent student activism. Protests continued including the outrage to US involvement in the Vietnam War. This together with a campus in uproar, the search began for a permanent administrator to somehow intervene on the present chaos and relieve Karl Falk of his so called presidential prerogatives as he fumbled slowly in ever widening circles of chaos and ruination of a once and special Fresno State College.

       [Editor's Note: The Bulldog Newspaper enjoys daily campus and international readership in excess of 1.3 millions. Howard and his wife Lois live in Clovis, California.]