Desert Rat Jack Bobbitt Left Estate to Help Lovelock’s Children.  

Seven years of Jack Montrose Bobbitt fund grants are adding up to make a big difference for the children in the small town of Lovelock, Nevada.

Jack Bobbit was an unusual man who left the children a Lovelock an unusual gift. While the individual grants generated from this endowment may be considered modest, in total over the years, the grants add up impact the small town of Lovelock and its children.

Bobbit Fund grants make it possible for children of all incomes to participate in extra-curricular and enrichment activities and sports. Over the last five years, the fund supported the eyeglass program for school children from the Lovelock Lion's Club.  The Pershing County School District received annual grants for different projects and improvements to programs ranging from boys and girls sports, band and music departments, scholarships, refurbishments at the high school weight room, and even new restrooms at the sports field.  Pop Warner sports, Boy and Girl Scout Troops, and the Little League received grants that enriched life for kids growing up in the rural town.

The Jack Montrose Bobbitt fund is an endowment that benefits the kids of today and will continue to grow and give to make life in Lovelock better for their children's grandchildren.

Jack Bobbitt lived the last ten years of his life in the small Nevada desert town of Lovelock, a place he found “by accident” on the way to somewhere else. He died in 2009 at the age of 65. Only a few residents of this town on I-80 in the middle of Nevada knew that Bobbitt served in the military and worked in the airline industry most of his life, living in cities such as Los Angeles, Miami, Kansas City, and Rota, Spain, before retiring and finding himself in Lovelock in 1999. Bobbitt’s friend, Bob Armstrong, tells the story, “Jack was on his way to Ely from Reno and woke up in Lovelock, looked around, said ‘Here is good enough’ - and decided to stay.” 

Bobbitt, a ladies’ man in his day, never married and had no children. He was a frugal person, affectionately called “the town reprobate,” by his buddies. He chose to live in extreme simplicity in retirement and his greatest pleasure was camping with his friends in the Eureka Valley desert north of Death Valley. He belonged to a group of friends from his days working at PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines) who enjoyed camping trips together in the valley for 30 years. Jack Montrose Bobbitt left his entire estate as an endowment at the Community Foundation of Western Nevada to “benefit the children of Lovelock,”   Annual grants from the Bobbitt fund are decided in the spring of each .year by a committee of fund advisors who knew Jack.