They Called Him Stink: Remembering Bob Styres
Years ago, Bob Styres' son was a young state auditor walking near the Capitol in Raleigh when Secretary of State Thad Eure stopped him. "Are you Stinky Styres' son?" Eure asked. He was.
Most people knew his father as Bob. His nickname, though, was "Stink," and it stuck well enough that even his wife called him that. His mother was known as "Mrs. Stinky."
Around our club, Bob's name comes up mostly when we talk about the scholarship that honors him. Beyond that, we knew he'd been a member and a veteran, and not much more. So we reached out to his son, and he wrote back with the stories below.
From Raleigh to the Army
Bob grew up in Raleigh when horses still pulled the mowers over the football field. According to the family, that's where the nickname came from. One day Bob fell into a pile of what the horses had left behind, and he scored a lot of touchdowns that day, since nobody wanted to tackle him.
He finished Broughton High School in 1949 and earned a civil engineering degree from NC State in 1954. He was a Sigma Chi at State, and his mother ended up as the chapter's unofficial house mother, a job she kept long after Bob graduated.
Bob was an only child, and by his son's account, a mother's boy. His father, who worked for Southern Railway, was killed in a train wreck in 1955, when Bob was 25.
Bob went through ROTC at State and served in the Army from 1954 until around 1962. He made Captain and flew as an Army Aviator with the Corps of Engineers, including time in Korea after the war. He loved to fly, and his son says he'd lay the Raleigh drawl on extra thick whenever he was talking to a Yankee air traffic controller.
Chairs, Salesmen, and Rotary
Bob spent most of his career as a design engineer for Fairfield Chair in Lenoir. His favorite spot in the plant was the sample room, and when the market came to Lenoir, he enjoyed entertaining the salesmen.
His son puts it simply: Bob loved people, and Rotary gave him a captive audience. He joined the Lenoir/Caldwell County club around 1970 and moved over to ours around 1997. He went to several Rotary International conventions, Munich in 1987 and Mexico City in 1991, among them. He often hosted visiting Rotarians and Rotary exchange participants, and he kept in touch with them for years afterward.
Helping Where He Saw a Need
Bob went looking for people who needed help. Lenoir was a small town with an isolated Black community, and his son has many memories of Bob helping families there with food, money, rides, and more.
He also sat on the Lenoir City School Board during desegregation and through its merger with the Caldwell County School Board. It was a tense time, and plenty of people didn't like the changes. Bob stuck to what he believed, and his son credits him with a big part in how well it turned out in the end.
"You don't run for school board for the money or fame," his son said. Bob cared about young people and how they did in school, and he wanted everyone to have a fair shot.
Stink at Home
Bob and his wife, Suggie, had three children: Catherine, Bob, and Bill. He coached Little League and helped out on the local radio broadcasts of Friday night football.
Like most men of his generation, Bob ran the grill, which was a problem, because he liked his meat well done. His son once gave him a Father's Day card that said on the front, "To the dad that grills everything to perfection." Inside: "and then grills it for another 30 minutes."
He was a State man to the core and pulled for just about everyone except the Tar Heels. His son says we're welcome to print Bob's favorite line, and that Bob would be proud of it: "Go to hell, Carolina!"
He loved to sketch, had a soft spot for political satire, and often drew op-ed cartoons for the Lenoir News-Topic and for Rotary's weekly bulletins.
His Name on a Scholarship
Bob died of a heart attack on October 18, 2000, and that same year our club set up the Robert N. Styres Scholarship in his memory. It's a four-year, renewable award for a Wake County public high school graduate, good at any college, university, or community college the student chooses. The committee looks past the top GPA to students who have overcome real adversity, and the Annual Capital City Golf Classic raises money for it every fall.
Suggie Styres, a longtime Rotarian herself, has given to the scholarship every year since it began.
We asked him what Bob would say to a student who receives it. "He would ask them all kinds of questions about who they are and what they want to do," he said. "Then he would tell them to go do it."
Why We Serve
Every Rotarian knows the Four-Way Test. Of the things we think, say, or do: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
We don't know whether Bob ever quoted it, but he lived it: the school board seat he held through a hard stretch, the families he helped in Lenoir, and the visiting Rotarians he hosted and kept up with afterward.
It fits that the scholarship with his name on it goes to students who have worked through hard circumstances to get where they are. That is Service Above Self in practice.
Because service isn't something we talk about. It's something we do.
Come and Join Us
We meet Tuesdays at 7:30 AM at Carolina Country Club, 2500 Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, and on Zoom. Visitors are always welcome.
And if you knew Bob, whether in Raleigh, in Lenoir, in the Army, or through Rotary, we'd love to hear your Stink story. We'll save you a seat.
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