Robert Andrew Wilson

Robert Andrew Wilson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1941. He died at his home in Dallas on May 5, 2017. He is the son of Elizabeth M. Wilson and Joseph Murray Wilson of Belmont, Mass. Bob graduated from Belmont High School in 1959 and entered Dartmouth College, where he was a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity and The Sphinx, a senior society. He graduated in 1963.

Later that year, he married Laura Cunningham of Norwell, Massachusetts. In 1965, the couple moved to Dallas, where Mr. Wilson had been assigned to work by Scott Paper Co. There, he met Ralph B. Rogers, who hired him in 1968 to become managing director of Dallas’ fledgling public television affiliate, KERA-TV (Channel 13).

In February of 1970, Mr. Wilson secured a $500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation and launched Newsroom, a half-hour, weeknight news program, hiring long-time Dallas newspaperman Jim Lehrer as executive editor. The program became so successful, it catapulted Lehrer to national renown as host of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. Lehrer went on to moderate 12 presidential debates.

He was, Lehrer recently told The Dallas Morning News, "a very important person in my life. The one thing Bob contributed above and beyond everything else was absolute energy. This man operated at full blast. Neither one of us knew a damn thing about television, but Bobby had it in him, and he put KERA on the map."

Mr. Wilson provided further proof of that in September of 1974, when he arranged for KERA to become the first U.S. television station to air the landmark British comedy series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Acclaimed director Terry Gilliam, a former member of the Monty Python troupe, has credited Mr. Wilson for much of the show’s success.

Public television icon Bill Moyers called Mr. Wilson “a good friend, an extraordinary colleague over the years, and I’m deeply grateful our paths crossed in the mission of public television that he served so well.”

In 1976, Mr. Wilson participated in a special program for mid-career managers at Harvard Business School and a year later launched his own advertising and graphic design firm in Dallas. There, he worked with some of the city’s most accomplished civic and business leaders, including Ross Perot Sr., Stanley Marcus and Raymond Nasher.

His name appears on five books, including American Greats, published in 2000, and Character Above All: Ten Presidents from FDR to George Bush, which Mr. Wilson edited. It was published in 1997.

Mr. Wilson was on the Board of Trustees of St. Mark’s School and was a member of the Board of Directors of The Lamplighter School and of SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts. He was a long time member of the Northwood Club.

Mr. Wilson’s survivors include his wife, Laura Wilson, their sons Andrew, Owen and Luke, and five grandchildren.

The family asks that anyone wishing to honor Mr. Wilson’s memory do so by making a donation to KERA.

Bob was a great father and a true friend.

A private funeral mass for family and friends will be held in the chapel at St. Mark’s School of Texas at noon Tuesday.