Robert Fairbanks Obituary (1928 – 2022) – Sacramento, CA

Robert Fairbanks
July 20, 1928 – July 17, 2022
Sacramento, California – Bob Fairbanks was born July 20, 1928, a year before the crash of the American stock market signaled the start of a worldwide depression. His parents, Bloomfield and Edith Schweitzer Fairbanks, occupied a tenement apartment owned by their parents, German immigrants who had settled in the Ozone Park section of the New York borough of Queens.
Bob graduated early from John Adams High School to join the Army to not miss World War II, but instead of shipping out to the Pacific or Europe, spent the waning days of the war stationed in the American South. Afterwards, he returned to New York and a job as splicer with New York Telephone. He enrolled in a night school program in electrical engineering, but then his father died, leaving Bob a small legacy that enabled him to attend Columbia College, where he majored in English and charted a new course for his life.
After graduation in 1954, Bob and a friend drove to San Francisco and liked it so much they decided to get jobs and stay, at least for the summer. Bob landed a job selling ads for the San Francisco Chronicle and loved it, but soon realized it was journalism, not advertising, that was his true calling. His first reporting job was for the Woodland Democrat. After a year learning the job and loving Woodland and its citizens, Bob returned East for Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.
In 1959, he came to Sacramento, where for the next couple of decades he worked the State Capitol beat for UPI and the Los Angeles times, sandwiched around a stint as press aid to State Senator Gene McAteer before McAteer died on a San Francisco handball court .
After serving as Bureau Chief at the Times, Bob edited the California Journal and the Sacramento Daily Recorder. The Recorder had established Capitol Audio Access service, which let people hear legislative hearings and other Capitol functions over the phone and turned it over to Bob as part of a severance arrangement. As that business grew, Bob taught journalism part-time at Cal State, Sacramento. Soon, Bob started announcing a daily schedule of events to subscribers, which led, in 1994, to the start of the Capitol Morning Report, a daily listing of upcoming events for members of the Capitol community.
Bob died July 17, 2022, three days before his 94th birthday, at home with his wife, Diane. He was predeceased by his sister, Janet Buzbee, and his first wife, Patricia Michaud Fairbanks. He is survived by his wife, Diane Thompson, his children Kathy and John Fairbanks, daughter-in-law Nancy Freese Fairbanks, and grandsons Otto and Rhys Fairbanks.
A Celebration of Life is planned for Saturday, September 10, 2022, at Sierra II Center at 2791 24th Street, Sacramento, from 11:30 to 2:30 pm We welcome all to join us in fondly remembering a good, kind, and loving man, father and husband.

Published by The Sacramento Bee from Sep. 5 to Sep. 6, 2022.

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