ROBERTS, Forest A.
ROBERTS, SALTER
Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 1/25/2016 at 23:44:43
BIOGRAPHY ~ FOREST A. ROBERTS
Graceland University, Lamoni, IowaForest A. Roberts, was born in Tabor, Iowa, on October 15, 1901. He received his education at Graceland (1919-21) and State University of Iowa (1921-23) where he received his bachelor of arts and master's degrees. He also took graduate courses at the University of Wisconsin (1930) and the University of Southern California (1940-41).
In June of 1925, Forest married Esther Ruth Salter of DePere, Wisconsin.
Forest taught sociology courses at Graceland from 1923 to 1928. He left Graceland to teach at J. Sterling Morton High School in Cicero-Berwyn, Illinois. During the summer of 1928, Forest and Esther moved to Marquette, Michigan, where he began his tenure in the English Department of Northern Michigan University (NMU).
Through his efforts, the NMU established the Speech Department, now known as Communication and Performance Studies, in 1955 and Forest was selected as department head. Affectionately known throughout the Upper Peninsula as "Mr. Speech," Forest was Northern's director of forensics (1933-38) and served as an official certification officer for the Michigan State Department of Speech Pathology (1943-64). He also established NMU's first courses in drama and directed many productions, which toured the Upper Peninsula (1928-43); he also acted in several roles. His last Marquette performance was in "The Snow Goose" in 1988.
While at NMU, Roberts was the faculty chair of the Alumni Relations Committee and a lifelong member of the Michigan Education Association, which culminated in a term on the MEA Board of Directors (1962-65). He was active in community affairs as a co-founder and president of the Marquette Community Concert Association (1936-39) and accepted many other community responsibilities.
In his retirement, the Roberts family maintained a home on Middle Island Point, where he and his wife spent their summers. She died in 1993.
NMU honored Forest on several occasions. On May 31, 1969, the Little Theatre was renamed in his honor. In 1987, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters. Later, the Forest A. Roberts Scholarship was established in his honor.
Forest passed away March 28, 1997. During a memorial service for him in the summer of 1997, a bronze plaque and portrait made in his honor were placed in the lobby of the theatre.
The Forest Roberts Theatre accommodates 514 people in a continental seating arrangement and has its own scene and electrics shops as well as state of the art make-up and costume facilities and dressing rooms. NMU’s theatre program offers extensive onstage, offstage and behind the curtain training.
SOURCE:
nmu.edu/forestrobertstheatre/namesakeTranscription by Sharon R. Becker, January of 2016
Decatur Biographies maintained by Constance McDaniel Hall.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen