Edward Brown Dobson (1935- )
Eddie is the middle child of Paul and Elizabeth Brown Dobson and one of the two most interesting people I’ve ever met. His younger brother Jerry is the other—and the subject of future writings. Eddie came home from the Exeter Hospital (now Café Lafayette) in 1935 to the house that would become a place where many Exeter-area youth gathered to play over the next eighteen years. That home was the old “Merryman Place,” built by R.C. Merryman in 1906 at Highway 198 and Road 210.
Now living on the Central Coast to be near his three daughters, Eddie remains very proud of his Exeter roots. His parents had a significant impact on Tulare County from the time they arrived in 1923 until their deaths in 1978 and 1983, respectively. Exeter’s Dobson Field is named for Paul, and a room at the LJ Williams Theater in Visalia is named for Elizabeth, an actress and leader in Tulare County community theater.
There isn’t enough space in this short article to share many Dobson stories, but here are a few highlights. Eddie and his siblings attended Kaweah Elementary School, northeast of Exeter. His older sister Cynthia graduated from Exeter Union High School in 1949, Eddie in 1953, and Jerry attended 9th grade there before transferring to a private school in Michigan, where he graduated in 1956. Jerry won the Small School Valley Championship in tennis that year- the only EUHS male tennis player to ever accomplish that feat.
In 1946, after the war, Paul took the family on a cross-country trip with a pop-up trailer. After seeing many tourist sites on the trip, they stopped at a summer camp in Vermont where one of Elizabeth’s college friends was working. All three children stayed for camp the rest of the summer. The family was so impressed with Camp Keewaydin, on the shores of Lake Dunmore, that they kept sending the kids to Vermont for camp in subsequent summers. That camp became a regular part of Eddie’s life—first as a camper and later as a counselor, or “Staffman,” for many years.
Eddie is quite the Renaissance man. In high school, he was an athlete (football, basketball, swimming, and track), participated in student council and the student body play, and sang in the chorus. After high school, he began at the University of New Mexico (UNM). He transferred to UC Berkeley for one year, where he played on the rugby team that was ranked number one in the world. He later returned to UNM on an ROTC scholarship and graduated with a degree in Archeology and Anthropology. Eddie spent time as an Air Force helicopter pilot in both Germany and France where he met President DeGaulle. Eddie’s assignment in the helicopter was to be a first responder to any airplane accidents. He was then assigned to fly over many sites in Saudi Arabia. He returned to school on the GI Bill to earn his Master’s in Art at Arizona State University where he specialized in sculpture. His work is located in many private collections around the country but a few of his sculptures will be featured in a special exhibit at CACHE later this year. Eddie began his career as a college art teacher at Colorado Women’s College in Denver before moving to Utah State University and finally settling into a twenty-year role at Grossmont Community College in San Diego. He has traveled extensively around the world. Besides North America and Mexico, he’s been to the Amazon, all throughout the Middle East, Northern Africa and throughout Europe. When his parents passed, he returned part-time to manage the sale of the family farm—and, in the process, turned one of the properties into a golf course. During those years (1983–1986), Eddie wrote a regular column for the Exeter Sun titled Reflections of a Rock Roller. Along the way, Eddie has written sixteen novels, most of them based on people and stories from his life, including many from Exeter.
One of the many young people influenced and mentored by Eddie during his years at Camp Keewaydin was a young Michael Eisner. Eisner is best known as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company from 1984 to 2005. After his departure from Disney, he wrote a book titled Camp, extolling the virtues of the leadership lessons he learned at Keewaydin. Eisner and Eddie recently reconnected over lunch in Pismo. Eddie’s daughter had shared one of his novels with Eisner, who loved it. Using his knowledge of the film industry, Eisner optioned the book for an eight-hour series. That process is ongoing and is expected to result in the novel making its way to a screen near you. Eisner recently released an updated edition of Camp, adding a chapter at the end about Eddie. Copies of the book will be for sale at CACHE.
While we wait for that film to be produced, Eddie has agreed to loan CACHE a few of his sculptures to showcase in our gallery. We are proud to display some of this son of Exeter’s original work and will be promoting the exhibit with enthusiasm in the coming months.
