Hobart Brown, 74, a gallery owner and artist who parlayed a bet with a friend over who could build a better human-powered vehicle into a hobby enjoyed worldwide, died Wednesday in Fortuna, Calif., of pneumonia, said his friend Shaye Harty.
Harty is president of the nonprofit group that organizes the Kinetic Sculpture Race, a three-day competition co-founded by Brown that features wacky wheeled contraptions.
The event started in 1969 when Brown turned his son’s tricycle into a decorated five-wheeled “Pentacycle” and another local artist challenged him to a race through downtown Ferndale that drew six other participants, Harty said.
The annual race is 38 miles. Over the years, the tradition expanded to other U.S. cities and as far away as Australia, Harty said.
Born in Oklahoma on Feb. 27, 1933, Brown moved to Los Angeles as a boy and learned to weld while working as an airplane mechanic. In 1962, he moved to Humboldt County, where he opened Hobart Galleries in Eureka to represent local artists.
His wire sculptures were shown in museums and collected by Ronald Reagan and Johnny Carson, among others.
John Grenier, 77, a Birmingham, Ala., attorney and a cornerstone of the modern Republican Party in Alabama who helped elect the state’s first Republican governor in more than a century, died Tuesday of cancer, said his son, John Beaulieu “Beau” Grenier.
Grenier grew up in New Orleans. He served as a Marine fighter pilot in Korea before moving to Birmingham. In 1960, he organized a rally in Birmingham for GOP presidential candidate Richard Nixon, beginning his long involvement with politics, his son said.
In 1961, he became chairman of the Young Republicans in Alabama and the following year was elected chairman of the Alabama Republican Party.
Republican National Committeeman Edgar Welden said Grenier recruited serious GOP candidates to run for the U.S. Senate and House at a time when the Democratic primary was considered the election in Alabama. In 1964, Grenier organized delegates for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater and directed his campaign in the South, where Goldwater had his strongest support. Riding Goldwater’s coattails, the GOP elected five congressmen in Alabama, ending decades of all-Democratic representation.
