Newsmakers - As seen by Herb Hake
Cartoon #3 Published 8-24-1976
Bob Berry

     On August 4, 1976, the Record ran a picture of Bill Berry and his half-Arabian horse, Axis Boldaslove. Berry had won the National Half-Arabian Pleasure Driving Championship in Louisville, Kentucky. The cut line reported that “Berry was accompanied by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Berry, owners of Berry’s Skyline Arabians.” It was another moment of reflected glory for Bob and Barbara.
Bob Berry, a Waterloo boy who graduated from West High School, first met Barbara Moss at Grinnell College , where both were students. Barbara was a daughter of D. W. Moss, a U. S. Cavalry officer in World War I, from whom she inherited a love of horses. Indeed, when Bob went to call on Barbara at the Moss home, he often “had to wait until she came back from a ride with some other guy.” He out-waited his rivals. Bob and Barbara were married in 1941. On January 1, 1942, Bob received a card from his father-in-law, who was Chairman of the Black Hawk County Selective Service Board. Determined that “Dury” would be the last man to draft him, Bob went to Des Moines and enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corps. During World War II, he served in the Pacific Theatre and, among other adventures, led a landing detail on Okinawa. While he was overseas, Barbara bought the first horse in the Berry string, a Palomino mare. When he was mustered out in 1946, Bob was offered a job at the Cedar Lumber Company. He accepted it. In 1947, he bought stock in the company and became an officer of the corporation.

     Since that time, he has risen through the ranks to his present position as President of Cedar Lumber. Meanwhile, Bob and Barbara acquired what his sister, Becky, called “a pony-sized farm,” bought especially so that young horse-lovers would have a place to keep their horses. In November, 1959, The Western Horseman carried an article titled “Lend-Lease Arabians.” It told about Carleton Cummings of Skyline Trust, Moscow, Idaho, who raised purebred Arabian horses and leased them, subject of purchase. A Berry entourage went to Idaho and brought back an Arabian colt and a chestnut filly. This was the beginning of Berry’s Skyline Arabians, now located at 2301 Skyline Drive, Route 3, Cedar Falls. Robert, Lyn and Bill, the three children of Bob and Barbara, share the enthusiasm of their parents, and there are trophies and ribbons galore to prove that the members of the family spend many hours in the company of horses.
Bob is Past President of the Iowa Arabian Horse Association. At the local level, he is Past President of the Lions Club and Past Commander of American Legion Post 237. In 1973, he received a plaque honoring him as “Lion of the Year.” It recognized his distinguished community service and complemented the commitment of Bob and Barbara Berry “to raise, train and show Arabians.”