Selby, Herbert S. – 1925-2010

ANDERSON, GATSCHET, KIRKHAM, O’MEARA, SELBY, SQUIRE, WELKER, YOUNG

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 10/11/2010 at 11:13:19

Herbert S. Selby was born April 3, 1925, to Rodney Q. Selby and Lucile M. Welker in Des Moines, Iowa. He grew up in Des Moines and graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1942. Rather than wait to be drafted, he volunteered for the Army Paratrooper Corps and was assigned to the 17th Airborne Division. While undergoing final training in England, he was accidentally run over by a Jeep, and after several months in the hospital his military career was over. After returning, he attended Drake University and graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1949 and joined the Newton law firm of Cross & Hamill, later Selby & Updegraff. Herb represented the fifth generation of senior-partner status following the Honorable David Ryan (who started the original firm in 1867), W.O. McElroy, John E. Cross and W. Keith Hamill, all preceded him as senior partners.
Herb was active in both civic and professional endeavors, including 10 years as Newton city attorney, president of County and District 5A Associations, president of the Iowa Defense Counsel Association, president of the Newton Country Club, the Greater Newton Area Chamber of Commerce, United Way Drive chairman and later president of the Newton United Way Board. He served as co-chair of the Newton school bond effort in the early 1990s. Herb has served on Dollars for Scholars and the YMCA Endowment Board.
Herb was active in organizing non-partisan campaign slates for municipal elections since 1951. He served as Republican Congressional District chairman and member of the Republican State Central Committee (1964-1970), and for 12 years general counsel to that committee. He served twice as a delegate of the Republican National Convention. He was a long-time board member of US Bank in Newton. Herb served as general counsel for The Vernon Company since 1955.
In the earlier years of his practice, Herb was a defense lawyer in civil matters primarily, hired by insurance companies to defend against personal injury and property claims. For the last four decades, he has practiced with a greater emphasis on corporate, trust and estate tax areas. Herb has trusts that he has managed and served as a Trustee on for years and continued to manage many of those assets as an agent for the beneficiaries long after the Trusts have ended. Many of his clients have been with him through those decades, as well as his long time secretary, Roxie Ashby, who worked with him for nearly 42 years.
Herb married Harriett Kirkham on Feb. 14, 1947, in Des Moines. They had two sons, Spencer Selby (Sara O’Meara), who is a writer and resides in Ames, and Kirk Selby, who resides in Newton, and a daughter, Martha Selby (Mitchell Squire), who lives in Ames and is on the faculty at Iowa State University College of Engineering, and two grandchildren, Alexa and Malcolm, both of Ames. Also left to honor Herb’s memory is his half-brother, Steven Gatschet of Philadelphia, Pa. He was preceded in death by his parents, Rodney Q. Selby and Lucile M. Welker Anderson; step-mother, Mary R. Selby; his brother, John R. Selby; and sister, Patricia Young.
Source: Newton Daily News; Monday, September 27, 2010