, 
, 
.jpg">Dallas Bowron left lasting impressions with people he met during his 107 years in Rock County, most of them positive.
Bowron, Rock County’s oldest resident, died Saturday at the Sanford Luverne Hospice Cottage.
“Dad was a positive guy who liked engaging with people,” said son John Bowron of Luverne. “He was honest and fair.”
The elder Bowron grew up in Magnolia and graduated from Magnolia High School in 1932 during the Great Depression.
“Lessons learned of that time taught Dad to be very conservative and self-reliant,” John said.
“Dad always paid cash — if you couldn’t pay for something, you didn’t need it.”
As a teenager, Dallas bought sheep for his livestock trader dad, often traveling to out-of-state sales. He purchased the champion Suffolk buck at the 1935 World’s Fair in Chicago.
“One local Rock County banker got a telephone call to see if his check would be good,” John said.
Business skills honed as a teenager served Dallas well when he started farming with his dad in 1939.
“He was always interested in improving what he was involved in,” John said.
Dallas convinced his dad that combines harvested grain better than threshers did by showing him the grain lost on the ground after threshing.
In 1958 Dallas purchased the Charolais cattle — the first to be raised in Rock County — to improve calf weaning weights.
Farming was a part of Dallas’ 42-year career. He and his late wife, Minerva, retired to Luverne in 1981.
To the Cedar Avenue neighborhood, Dallas was known as “Grandpa Bowron.” He used to give out candy to the kids who would frequently stop by.
Homemade birthday cards with scribbles and stickmen given to Dallas for his 99th birthday from the neighborhood children were among his most cherished, he told the Star Herald in 2013.
Dallas became a popular resident when he moved to Poplar Creek when he was over the age of 100. He lived there until entering hospice eight weeks ago.
He is remembered by his four granddaughters — Emily Crabtree, Alison Chinn, Johnna Ahrendt and Jessica Oye — and the life lessons and memories he has given them including:
•The role model of doing the right things, being honorable and loving unconditionally.
•The memories of his grace and movement on the dance floor as he loved dancing and teaching them to let him lead.
•Instilled a strong work ethic in those who worked by his side, especially his ability to spot and pull a roadside or pasture thistle no matter where he was headed.
•And being gratefulness for good health, where he never let age define him or limit him. Dallas just kept on living and doing as much as he could whether he was 80 or 100.
A complete obituary for Dallas is printed on page 7.