Dr. Robert Eliot Pratt, Professor Emeritus, passed away January 24, 2020, in Duluth, Minnesota. Born in St. Paul on September 12, 1938, to Dr. Harry and Mary Pratt. Bob grew up in Grand Marais, Minnesota, on Lake Superior’s north shore. The son of a dentist and a teacher and the brother of a doctor, Bob loved trucks.
Upon graduating from Cook County High School in 1956, Bob married his high school sweetheart, Beverly. He held jobs working construction, on the fishing boats and driving truck where he gained an appreciation and admiration for this type of work that never left him.
He went to Mankato State College and graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he became a teacher, teaching in Hermantown for five years. He earned his graduate degree under a fellowship at Arizona State University and worked as a school counselor in Tacoma, Washington, before accepting a fellowship to attend the University of Connecticut where he received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. While in Connecticut, he worked at Community Resources for Justice, a program designed to keep offenders from repeating, achieving the lowest recidivism rate in the nation. He then became coordinator of the graduate program in counselor education at California State College, San Bernardino.
Longing for home, he became a high school counselor in Chaska, Minnesota, before accepting a position at Moorhead State University where, after nearly a half-century in education, he retired as a Professor Emeritus. It was here that he was dubbed with the moniker, “Professor Big Rig,” because he went out and bought a bright red freightliner to call his own. He hired drivers to make it work as a business but, the fact is, he drove it as much as he could, unable to hide the fact that this was the real reason he bought it.
Being back in Minnesota and having a truck wasn’t enough. So, upon his retirement, Bob returned to Grand Marais where he remained active in the community working at Cook County Higher Education, for the Cook County Historical Society and by helping local students prepare for college leading to his book, “The Academic Warrior” being published in 2011.
Throughout his education, career and entire life, Bob wanted to know people and to understand them. He wanted to help them if he could. He always valued people, recognized their worth beyond their circumstances, gave them hope, if not assistance, for the future and an assurance that they were good and fine just the way they were. Unimpressed with fortune or fame, the traits that Bob valued were those that he witnessed in the people that he knew and worked with growing up on the north shore. It was these traits he tried to bring out in others.
It was on the north shore that he was most happy and content. Driven by his love of Grand Marais and its people, Bob served almost as a human kiosk telling all he met stories of the town, its history and the people who made it, sometimes whether they wanted to hear it or not. A great storyteller, he struggled with punchlines, but never let that discourage him from telling a joke.
Aside from his love of trucks, Bob also loved motorcycles, fast cars, dogs, boxing and afternoon naps, a trait he passed on to both of his sons. But, most of all he loved his family. His wife of almost 63 years was his best friend. He said she was the best thing to ever happen to him. He was proud of and loved his three children, Renee, Mike and Tim. He had seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren that kept him busy.
Bob was a remarkable man whose goal in life was to help others. He was interested in how people learn and how they applied this knowledge into their life. He was certainly his own man. He always did what he thought was the right thing to do. We already miss him.
Bob will be laid to rest February 8, 2020, on the 63rd anniversary of his marriage to Beverly.
He is survived by his wife, Beverly, his brother Howard, his three children, Renee, Mike and Tim, seven grandchildren, Tim, Erica, Hannah, Viki, Mo, Alex and Nate, and his four great-grandchildren, Dominic, Tymber, Turner and Ella.
Services will be held at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais at 11:00 a.m. on February 8, 2020.
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