David B. Bowes, a former Washington correspondent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a former national trade association executive and speechwriter, and a contributor to mid-Atlantic regional magazines, died May 13, 2022, of natural causes. He lived on a farm in Washington County, Maryland, and had been a resident of the greater Washington, D.C. area for more than 40 years. He was 88 years old.
Mr. Bowes was a travel writer for Chesapeake Bay magazine, editor at large for Mid-Atlantic Country magazine and wrote nature essays for Potomac Review after retiring in 1990 as vice president for communications at the National Association of Manufacturers. He also was a fundraiser for the affiliated Manufacturing Institute.
He was a Post-Dispatch general assignment reporter and editorial writer in St. Louis before joining the paper’s Washington bureau in 1966. He covered President Lyndon B. Johnson’s fiveday circumnavigation of the planet in 1968 and ate tear gas at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
During the 1970s, after two years as a copy writer and account executive with the Henry J. Kaufman and Associates advertising agency in Georgetown, a historic neighborhood in D.C., Mr. Bowes edited the Cincinnati Post’s editorial and oped pages. He was cited by the Scripps Howard Foundation for “outstanding editorials that produced results” by saving a historic Cincinnati neighborhood from demolition for a highway.
Mr. Bowes specialized in urban affairs journalism. The American Political Science Association recognized him in 1970 for 60 roving national essays that later informed his commentary on city planning, urban design and historic preservation. Drawing on experience as a marketing communications consultant to architecture and construction firms, he served on design juries and wrote an urban affairs column in Cincinnati.
He conceived and wrote a business development manual for members of the American Institute of Architects. His book, “Creating the Globally Competitive Community,” was published by Partners for Livable Communities, where he was a senior associate. He also authored “Trail Mix: A Writing Life Enhanced by Attention Deficit Disorder.”
Mr. Bowes began his career as a reporter for the Toledo Blade, after winning the McNaught Medal for graduate studies in journalism at the University of Michigan. He won the Con Lee Kelliher Award for news reporting from the St. Louis chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, a professional journalism society. He earned a BA in English “with distinction” from the University of Virginia, where he co-edited the 1956 yearbook and was a member of Beta Theta Pi social fraternity. He ran 440- yard dashes and mile relays for Virginia’s varsity track team and was a member of the university’s Eli Banana and Z honor societies.
Before a year of law school that was followed by an M.A. in graduate journalism, he served as a U.S. Navy intelligence officer in the Pentagon and at the National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, Maryland.
David Bigelow Bowes was born in St. Louis and reared in Perrysburg, Ohio, a Toledo suburb. He attended public and private schools in suburban Toledo, as well as Ridley College boarding school in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
He was a trustee of the Washington Theological Consortium for ecumenical and interfaith outreach, chaired the board of the then College of Preachers at Washington National Cathedral and was a trustee of the International Eye Foundation.
Mr. Bowes enjoyed classic jazz and bluegrass music, helming his sail and power boats on the Chesapeake Bay and reading in science, poetry, philosophy and theology. His children speak of his lifelong boyish enthusiasm, insatiable curiosity, ability to see the best in people and inclination to ponder life’s plentiful ironies.
He met every other month with a book discussion group for 25 years and was a member of the Cosmos Club.
His first marriage to the late Judith Gregory ended in divorce; they remained friends.
Survivors include his spouse of 33 years, psychologist Rosemary Tofalo Bowes, PhD., of Washington, D.C.; three children from his first marriage, Ginger Walker of South Portland, Maine; Gregory Bigelow Bowes (Alice Patterson Albright) of Washington, D.C., and Martha Hopkins Bowes (William Michael Dallman) of Tucson, Arizona; and two grandsons, David Albright Bowes and Daniel Korbel Bowes.
A memorial service for Mr. Bowes and interment in the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church columbarium will take place at a later date. Some ashes will be cast adrift by family where the Choptank River flows into the Chesapeake.
Tributes in lieu of flowers may be sent to a charity of the reader’s choice. Consider Chesapeake Bay Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union, Mennonite Central Committee, Episcopal Relief Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Catholic Relief Services or Islamic Services USA.