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Military Service: Army

CLARENCE A. ROBINS was born in Defiance, Iowa, on December 8, 1884. When Robins was four, his family moved west and settled in La Junta, Colorado. In 1907, he graduated from the William Jewell College in Missouri, and then taught school, before entering medical school. He graduated from the University of Chicago Rush Medical School in 1917, and interned at Cincinnati General Hospital. Robins served for a short time in 1918, as a first lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps. He entered politics in 1938, as a member of the Idaho State Senate, an office to which he was reelected in 1940, 1942, and again in 1944. He also served in 1943 as president and majority leader in the Senate. He won the 1946 Republican gubernatorial nomination and was elected governor of Idaho. During his tenure, the old board of pardons was eliminated and in its place the board of corrections was initiated; the "liquor-by-the-drink" law was enacted; the states' school system was restructured and school districts were consolidated; and the Idaho State College at Pocatello became a four-year institution. After leaving office on January 1, 1951, Robins ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. However, later that same year he secured an appointment as director of the North Idaho District Medical Service Bureau in Lewiston, a position he held for seven years. He also served as a member of the Idaho Sate Medical Association, as well as the American Medical Association. Governor Clarence A. Robins died on September 20, 1970, and was buried at the Lewis and Clark Memorial Gardens in Lewiston, Idaho.

Sources:

Idaho State Historical Society

Idaho State Historical Society Gubernatorial Manuscript and Archive Collections:

• Records, C.A. Robins, 1947-1951. AR0002.0022.

The Political Graveyard

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 1, Westport, Conn.; Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.