James Victor Bowen

BOWEN, WEST, TOMPKINS, POTTS

Posted By: Skipton
Date: 1/7/2011 at 21:46:39

James Victor “Vic” Bowen, age 72, of rural Keota, died Tuesday, August 11, 2009, near Rose Hill, Iowa.

Vic was born April 29, 1937, in the “Happy Hollow” family farm home, the only child of James C. and Naomi Opal (West) Bowen. He attended Hardscrabble and Keota Elementary Schools and graduated from Columbus Junction High School in 1954. He then attended college for two years before returning home to farm.

Vic served in the Iowa National Guard for eight years. On November 2, 1961, he married Nancy Tompkins in Kahoka, Missouri. The couple lived in North Carolina where Vic farmed and worked at Dayco Southern in Waynesville before returning to the Keota area to farm in 1968. Vic was a member of the United Methodist Church and had a lifelong love of crops and the land. He especially enjoyed antique tractors and machinery. Long ago, Vic raised purebred Yorkshire hogs and was the leader of a Dutch Creek boys’ 4-H Club. He is an Honorary Chapter Farmer of the Keota F.F.A. He has been a volunteer for the Blue Ribbon Foundation of the Iowa State Fair since 1998 and a volunteer for the Grand Outlaw National Tractor and Truck Pull at the Iowa State Fair for many years. Vic was a loving father, grandfather, husband and son who cherished his family and friends and neighbors. He was a charter member of the Iowa Chapter 5 International Harvester Collectors Club where he served as director and treasurer, Central Iowa Two-Cylinder Club, Wayland Area Antique Tractor Club, Central Hawkeye Gas Engine and Tractor Association, and Iowa Tractor Pullers Association.

Survivors include his wife, Nancy Bowen of Keota; two children, Robin Marie Potts and husband, Tracy of Kingwood, Texas, and Jeffrey James Bowen of Keota; and four grandchildren, Eric, Michelle, Brian and Nichole.

He was preceded in death by his father in January of 1990 and his mother in December of 2007