Longtime Tri-Cities leader and Herald co-founder dies just short of turning 103
A co-founder of the Tri-City Herald and one of the architects of the Tri-Cities’ growth and development in the second half of the last century has died.
Robert “Bob” Philip was one week short of his 103rd birthday.
With business partner Glenn Lee and friend Sam Volpentest, Philip pushed for projects that would improve the Tri-Cities while also working to establish a unifying identity for the area.
“He’s given so much to the community,” his son, who’s also named Bob, told the Herald when his father turned 100 in 2018.
The elder Bob Philip grew up in Tacoma and attended the University of Washington.
He served in the U.S. Navy from 1941-45 and went on to start an export business with Lee.
On a trip to the Tri-City area to look for a flour mill to use in their business, Lee learned that the weekly Pasco Herald newspaper was for sale.
“Glenn and I didn’t know anything about the newspaper business, but we recognized an opportunity. So we bought it,” Philip said in a 2018 phone interview from his home in Seattle.
They launched the daily Tri-City Herald in 1947, and it grew by leaps and bounds over the next several decades. In 1979, they sold the paper to The McClatchy Co., which still owns it today.
Community involvement
Philip and his wife Mary and their two sons spent more than 30 years in the Tri-Cities, where he helped co-found the Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council, now the Tri-City Development Council or TRIDEC. He served as president from 1963 to 1982.
His family also wrote in his obituary that he served “his beloved University of Washington” where he chaired many committees, was on the Board of Regents for 19 years and was an avid Husky season ticket holder.
Shortly after he and Lee sold the Herald in 1979, Mary Philip died.
He remarried a few years later, and he and his second wife, Betty Sharp, traveled the world and enjoyed playing golf. She died in 2011.
When he turned 100, he was asked his secret to a long life.
“I’m not sure how it happened,” he replied.
“People ask me, what did I eat or what did I do? I don’t have any answers,” he said. “The good Lord must have been looking after me. I’ve been very fortunate in my life.”
Newspaper legacy
Although Philip no longer was in the newspaper business, he saw papers as vital.
“I’m quite concerned that the younger generation doesn’t seem to find it to their best interest to buy newspapers. They’re willing to take their news from a little thing in their hands that they punch all day long,” he said at the time of his milestone birthday.
“They’re not getting the news in the complete sense. I think it’s too bad. Newspapers are still a very important part of the communication system in our country,” he said.
He also shared of his enduring love for the Tri-Cities.
It was a wonderful place to live and raise a family — and he hoped it continued to thrive, he said.
“I’m very lucky to be able to live the life I’ve been living in retirement. I haven’t got a complaint in the world,” he told his former newspaper then.
“The Tri-Cities and the Tri-City Herald were very good to me, and I’m pleased I had a part in their original growth.”
