BonnerSprings.com

Dennis Robertson

Edwardsville lost a long-serving, former police chief and well-liked neighbor on Sunday.

Dennis Robertson, 61, an Edwardsville resident and chief of the Edwardsville Police Department from 1979 to 1992, died in a rollover vehicle accident at Kansas Avenue and Kansas Highway 32.

The Kansas Highway Patrol crash log for the accident at 4:35 p.m. said Robertson was headed north in a 2007 Kia on Kansas Avenue when he lost control and slid sideways across railroad tracks. Robertson's vehicle "continued northbound into the ditch, overturned and came to rest eastbound in the eastbound lanes of K-32," according to the log. Robertson had been wearing a seat belt and was taken to Shawnee County Morgue in Topeka.

His wife, Pamela Robertson, remembered him as "a caring and loving husband, father and grandfather."

They had two daughters, Cindy and Laurie, and Robertson died on the couple's 29th wedding anniversary. They had five grandchildren.

"He was a great grandpa and poppy," Pamela said. "One of the girls called him Grandpa, and one called him Poppy."

Robertson said her husband was also good for the city.

"I feel that he did a lot of good while he was the chief of Edwardsville Police," Pamela Robertson said, including busting a large narcotics ring in 1987.

Pamela Robertson said her husband was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in North Carolina until the ninth grade, after which his family moved to Kansas City, Kan., where his father hailed from. Dennis Robertson graduated from Washington High School in Kansas City, Kan., eventually joined the Marines and served a tour in Vietnam.

After his five-year stint in the Marines ended, Robertson worked laying asphalt and served as a patrol officer in Edwardsville and Johnson County before becoming chief of police for Edwardsville.

Pamela Robertson said her husband's unusually long tenure as the Edwardsville Police Chief - the department went through two or three, depending on how one counts, in the last three years - was due to the fact that he "was very conscientious. She said his job was important to him and the safety of the people of Edwardsville was important to him.

"He was a wonderful man," Pamela Robertson said. "A lot of people liked him : I still hear a lot of compliments on him in Edwardsville, that they wish he was still chief."

After leaving the police force, Robertson went to work as an investigator for the state's Social and Rehabilitative Services, where he inspected cases of welfare and hospital fraud as well as child abuse.

Kathy and Jerry Pappert have been neighbors of the Robertsons for 34 years.

"They're like family at this point," Kathy Pappert said.

The two families lived within a block of each other in the trailer park in Edwardsville for 11 years before finding themselves living next door to each other on South 104th Street in Edwardsville.

"He was a good neighbor," Jerry Pappert said. "He was easy to talk to. We'd get together in the neighborhood and talk occasionally : If we needed a favor done he'd do it for us, and vice-versa."

"He would walk all the time," Jerry Pappert said of Robertson, in an effort to help his diabetes. After a while, "he'd just be soaking wet."

Leo Mills, another neighbor, had just seen Robertson the day of the accident.

"He was out weed-whipping yesterday when I saw him," Mills said Monday.

Mills also remembered Robertson fondly as a neighbor.

"He was always good and helpful, always considerate of my wife," Mills said. "He was always making sure everything's OK around here. One time he saw some car pull in here, and he (Robertson) pulled in to make sure" there was no robbery going on.

"We could always call on him if we needed something," Mills said.

The funeral for Dennis Robertson will be 11 a.m. today at the Alden-Harrington Funeral Home chapel, 214 Oak St., to be followed by burial at the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery.

Comments