Robert & Shirley Walker

When they met on a blind date on New Year’s Day 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Bob Walker was in the Air Force at nearby Maxwell AFB and Shirley was working for the Alabama Department of Education. They married the next year, and when Bob’s Air Force tour ended, they moved to West Virginia, where Bob earned his mechanical engineering degree at West Virginia Tech. After a brief residence in Ohio for post-graduate training after Bob was hired by Babcock and Wilcox, the Walkers moved to Lynchburg in 1961.

While Bob started what would be a 34-year career at B&W, Shirley worked in the personnel office at General Electric for three years before a daughter, Deborah, and a son, Kevin, joined the Walker household. When the children were older, Shirley started working in the Lynchburg Registrar’s office, and in 1984 she was hired by Dr. Frank Flint as an administrative assistant for the Department of Biology at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, a position that soon expanded to include the Chemistry, Physics, and Math departments as well. She retired in 2007, after managing support services for faculty and students in the Martin Science building for 23 years. It was her favorite job, she says, with a bonus of having summers free for family trips and hosting their children, now living in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and four grandchildren at their Locksview home.

Beyond his professional life in nuclear engineering, Bob pursued a second vocation, in the aviation world. As a pilot, he provided “first flights” to many Lynchburg families and children and spent countless volunteer hours judging flying competitions and coordinating aviation events, pilot breakfasts, and air shows. At the Lynchburg Air Show in 2016 he received the Wright Brothers “Master Pilot” award, given by the FAA and the U.S. Department of Transportation in recognition of 50 years of accident-free flight. He was recently honored with a special “fly over” event, a touching tribute organized and conducted by his students and aviation colleagues over the years, in gratitude for his friendship and service. That day’s events were captured on video and reported in the Lynchburg News & Advance.

Shirley has enjoyed long walks (she walked to work at R-MWC after a big snow), sewing clothes for her daughter and grandchildren, and playing bridge “for fun.”  Bob did woodworking for many years, building and repairing furniture for family and friends. They have recently celebrated weddings of their two granddaughters, and look forward to moving to Woods Edge as soon as renovations are done.