BG Frank and Bobbie Gillespie
BRIGADIER GENERAL FRANK AND BOBBIE GILLESPIE
MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP
Frank W. Gillespie was born September 27, 1912 in Gaines, Michigan. Following graduation from Gaines High School, he was selected to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and upon graduation was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. After graduation in 1936, he was assigned to the U.S. Army’s Flight School at Randolph Field, Texas. He graduated in 1937 and was awarded his pilot’s wings. After graduation that same year, he married Bobbie.
During his distinguished military career, Frank served in a variety of overseas and stateside assignments that brought him to the highest ranks of the Air Force. During World War II, he served in North Africa, Italy, and Hungary. Following World War II he was assigned as the Air Attache to Australia, in addition to stateside assignments in Pennsylvania, Florida, Washington D.C., and Minnesota. In 1959 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and was the commander of the 25th Air Division at McCord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington. From 1961 to 1964 he commanded the 86th Air Division at Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany, before returning to the states to assume his final command. From 1964 to 1966, he was the commanding general of the 26th Air Division, Adair Air Force Station, Oregon.
Bobbie was born in Scanlon, Louisiana, on April 18, 1915. Like many military wives, Bobbie traveled with and helped her husband in his duties in many foreign locations. They were assigned to the Panama Canal Zone where their first child Frank, Jr. was born. Two more sons, Michael and James, were born while Frank was assigned to the Pentagon.
Following his retirement in 1966, Frank and his wife, Margaret ‘Bobbie’ Gillespie, made the Willamette Valley and Corvallis their home. During the ensuing thirty-three years, both became committed to service to the community. Bobbie performed volunteer service for the Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan, the American Red Cross, and the Good Samaritan Auxiliary. She was a chapter member of the Corvallis Assistance League.
In 1968, Frank received a master’s degree in counseling and guidance from Oregon State University and worked for the Oregon Employment Service from 1980 to 1986. He was a member of the Corvallis Rotary Club, Corvallis Elks Lodge No. 1413, and the Albany Woodpeckers. Together they were members of the Corvallis Country Club and the Military Officers Club of Corvallis, where Frank served one term as president.
Frank and Bobbie were strong supporters of education and military service. Their son, Michael, graduated from OSU in 1967 and commissioned through Air Force ROTC as a second lieutenant.
Brigadier General Gillespie passed away on July 21, 1996, and Bobbie followed him in May 1999. After her death, family and friends established a scholarship in the couple’s memory. The scholarship recognizes academic achievement and commitment to military service for a student in the Air
Force or Army ROTC programs at Oregon State University or Western Oregon University.