When his first child was born with a learning disability in 1951, a doctor told Robert Klas and his wife that they should put the baby in an institution and focus their attention on the children who would come after.
Robert and Alexandra "Sandy" Klas ignored that advice. Over the next few decades, the pioneering couple broke new ground in raising awareness and money for people with learning disabilities, culminating in the launch of the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am golf tournament in 1972.
After raising just $9,000 at the inaugural event, the Pro-Am became a major success, generating $7.7 million in the past 47 years for nonprofit agencies in Minnesota.
"It was always easy to support Bob's causes because he was always the first guy in," said Tom Cody, longtime manager of the tournament and son of co-founder Pat Cody Sr. "I don't know a more unselfish person. Bob said, 'Donations are the rent we pay for living on this planet,' and he lived by that."
Robert "Bob" C. Klas Sr. died March 8. He was 91.
The second of nine children, Klas grew up in Wabasha, Minn. His father was a railroad worker and money was tight. As teenagers, Bob and his older brother, Dan, began riding the rails during summer recess, earning less than $1 an hour repairing sections of broken track throughout the Midwest.
In 1944, the brothers pooled their money to buy a secondhand popcorn wagon, which became an institution in the Wabasha area, with family members operating the cart through 1984.
"Dad would give out samples of popcorn, and Dan would get irritated," said Tom Klas, one of Bob's six children. "He'd say, 'What are you doing? You're giving away our profits!' Dad would say: 'Just wait. People will come back.' Which one do you think became the attorney, and which became the businessman?"
