Everyone around Swink knew Bob Gerler as the guy who drove a red Thunderbird convertible in the town parades and was a farmer, an Otero County commissioner and a church organist.
But not everyone knew he once gave a governor a candy dish made out of a cow pie.
Gerler, who died Oct. 23 at age 78, somehow got into making the candy dishes by soaking a cow pie in polyurethane until it was sealed, said his daughter, Sandra Bemiss of La Junta. His wife, Betty Gerler, wasn’t wild about the “artwork,” but Gerler made several of them.
Former Gov. Roy Romer, now superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, recalls that candy dish, which he termed “life-sized.”
“I probably have it in storage somewhere.” he said. “It showed unique country humor.”
Gerler was known as the “nuts and bolts” commissioner who was determined to make Otero County run well.
He not only supervised the road crew during his time in office from 1978 to 1998, he even made the 180-mile trips to Denver to buy surplus road equipment to save the county money.
It was a good idea, most of the time. Once he bought two huge tubes, which he “had a vision” would work for culverts, said longtime friend and former commissioner, Jake Klein.
But when Gerler brought the tubes home, he “found out each had a jet engine inside,” Klein said, laughing.
“I don’t know what they did. I guess they used them as scrap metal,” said Klein, who wasn’t a commissioner at the time.
Gerler also could take a ribbing. He had a “wry, quirky” sense of humor, Bemiss said. “The first year and half of my marriage, the only thing my husband ever said to my Dad was, ‘Are you serious?”‘
Gerler’s day job was farming the land his family had owned for years, raising wheat, corn, hay, onions and tomatoes. He lived all his life within a quarter mile of where he was born.
He knew everyone, got involved in everything and cared about everyone, friends and relatives said.
As a child, he had learned to play an old pump organ, so he was the organist for years at Trinity Lutheran Church in La Junta, where he was baptized.
He held almost every office in the church at some time, Bemiss said, “except minister. And a few times, the pastor asked Dad to fill in and give the sermon.”
Gerler had a 1960 red Thunderbird convertible he drove in local parades, often carrying himself and the other commissioners “and even non-Democrats,” his daughter said. The car had a horn that played various songs.
Sandy Bemiss said her dad’s T-bird wasn’t at the cemetery. “But we knew Dad was near,” she said.
Gerler’s two daughters, Bemiss and Linda Malers, used to tease their father about his speech impediment. “He couldn’t say ‘no,”‘ said Malers, of La Junta.
Gerler was on the Governor’s Job Training Coordinating Committee, the Arkansas Valley Research Center Advisory Board, Farmer’s Home Administration county committee, Otero County School planning board and the Southeast Colorado Mental Health Services board.
In 2003, he was awarded the Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council’s outstanding board member award.
Gerler worked to get a mental health facility built and later successfully lobbied for a similar facility in adjacent Prowers County. He spearheaded efforts to repair a decades-old bridge north of Swink. The curvy, one-lane bridge had been a hazard for years.
His other hobby was pictures. He always carried two cameras, one with black-and-white film and another with color film. People called him “Flash.”
“I bet we have 200 pictures of that new bridge,” Bemiss said.
Robert H. Gerler was born Nov. 21, 1926, in La Junta and graduated from nearby Swink High School. He married Betty Hergenrader on May 14, 1950.
In addition to his wife and daughters, he is survived by his son, Tim Gerler of Loveland; four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. He was preceded in death by an infant son, Harold Lee Gerler.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
