Robert “Bob” G. Langenwalter ’50, longtime Wichita banker and investor, was always a man on the move.
He tracked elephants in Kenya with the photo editor of National Geographic, ran a political campaign for Congressman Garner Shriver ’61 and served on a Navy destroyer during World War II, taking part in the 1944 battle for Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.
After his graduation from WU, he developed sports boat and travel shows in Wichita and Denver. In 1961, he became vice president of Kansas State Bank, then served as president of Wichita State Bank from 1965-70. From 1972-82, he co-owned Central Bank and Trust Co., selling the bank in 1982 to move on to other adventures.
“I looked for interesting farm land in Kansas for some 20 years,” he said in 1986, three years after he bought a 720-acre farm south of Winfield, Kan. Flanked by the Flint Hills and the Walnut River and featuring a crystal-clear spring, the farm was transformed by his business instincts and entrepreneurial energies into, as he termed it, a “quasi-tourist attraction” with rows of shrubs, trees, ornamental grasses and pick-your-own produce. Spring Hill Farm drew some 18,000 people in 1989, the year before a fire in a main barn led to its closing.
Langenwalter’s many other involvements included a stint as executive director of Larksfield Place. He was active in civic, arts and education organizations, including the WU Alumni Association. And he was a noted photographer whose photos of Uganda, the Grand Canyon, Surinam, Tasmania, and Alaska were exhibited as “Five Varied Views.”
Bob Langenwalter died April 6, 2014, in Wichita.
