In 1983 Bob retired from Northwestern Bell Telephone Co. and found himself with a lot of extra time on his hands. In order to keep busy he tried anything and everything. One of the activities was woodcarving and he found that it was not an easy skill to acquire.

During one of the drawing classes he attended, Bob met some woodcarvers from the South Dakota Woodcarvers and they suggested that it might help if he attended their meetings. That started a long association interrupted by life's events along the way. Total carving time was much less than the twenty odd years that have passed.