February 2, 2022
In this month's issue of In Touch with Prairie Living, Michael Miller, Director and Bibliographer of the NDSU Libraries Germans from Russia Heritage Collection (GRHC) remembers colleague and friend Bob Dambach, the familiar face and voice of Prairie Public who died January 21, 2022.
The 40-year partnership with Michael Miller and the GRHC resulted in nine locally produced and nationally distributed Germans from Russia documentaries. Miller states, "Our Germans from Russia community has lost a shining star with the passing of Robert “Bob” Dambach...a special colleague and a dear friend. We traveled together to film and interview to produce documentaries in Argentina, Brazil, France Germany, Ukraine, Alberta, Saskatchewan, California, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, and the Dakotas...He genuinely enjoyed telling the stories of the people of the prairie region. I smile every time I think of the treasure he left as his legacy...the documentaries that will help viewers learn things they may not have known before. I watched Bob pour his heart and soul into the documentaries he produced, which is all the proof I need to know that if you love your work...it’s not work at all.”
In Touch with Prairie Living is a column for North Dakota and South Dakota weekly newspapers. View over 300 issues by Miller since 1996 in the NDSU Repository here.
Photographs taken while working on documentaries:
Left image with 4H Club shows Dambach in the back row, second in from left; Miller is on the back right
Right image in the field shows Dambach second in from right