Dr. Robert L. Lambright

Dr. Robert L. Lambright, age 96, of Kansas City, Missouri, died June 30th, 2023 at Claridge Court in Prairie Village, Kansas.

Robert Lamar (Bob) Lambright was born November 26, 1926 in Louisville, Kentucky, and was educated at public schools in Mississippi, later attending Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1944 in the pre-med class of the Navy V-12 program. When the Navy V-12 program was discontinued at the end of World War II, Bob continued his pre-med studies at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, graduating in 1948, and subsequently attended medical school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

In the summer of 1948 Bob married Ann Patrick of Corinth, Mississippi, and following his medical internship in 1951, he enlisted in the Air Force and attended flight surgeon training at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. From there, Bob was commissioned as a Captain and stationed in Japan and later with the Third Medical Group in Kunsan, Korea, during the Korean Conflict. Between 1952 and 1956 Bob and Ann had three children, Patrick, Christian, and Linda.

In 1957 Bob volunteered as a medical missionary to Indonesia with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board and moved the entire family to the island of Java, where they studied the Indonesian language for one year in Bandung, in Java, before being transferred to the Baptist hospital in Kediri, east Java, as a surgeon. In 1965 there was an attempted coup d’etat by communists in the country and Bob ordered that a political sign promoting communism be removed from the front of the Baptist hospital. This event, which made news broadcasts in the United States at the time, put Bob and the family in a precarious situation and necessitated their immediate return to the USA.

Bob subsequently accepted a Residency in Psychiatry at the University of Missouri Mental Health Center in Kansas City, hoping to return to Indonesia one day as a missionary psychiatrist. Family priorities, however, prevailed and he opened a private practice in Prairie Village, Kansas, eventually also serving as Medical Director of the Midwestern Counselling Center of Kansas.

In 1975 Bob married Virginia (Carmitchel) Owen of Kansas City, Missouri, and loved her children Rebecca, Keith, Melanie, Timothy and Gregory as his own. In 1980 Bob reenlisted in the Air Force as a flight surgeon with the rank of Lt. Colonel and moved with Virginia, and Greg to Zaragoza Air Base in Spain and was subsequently transferred to the USAF Hospital/Medical Center in Wiesbaden, Germany. Switching to the US Army when the Air Force wanted to retire him, Bob moved the family to the 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, eventually returning to Kansas City for retirement. During his lifetime, Bob served in three branches of the United States military.

Bob was an excellent swimmer and tennis player and a natural at sports. He was also a master punster, voracious reader, world traveler, teacher, student of history and the arts, pastry connoisseur, and was able to converse intelligently and jovially about nearly any topic.

From his marriage to Ann, Bob is survived by Patrick Lambright, Christian Lambright, and Linda (Lambright) Trussell, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.From his marriage to Virginia, Bob is survived by Keith, Timothy, and Greg Owen, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Father, son, husband, uncle, grandfather and friend, he will be greatly missed by all of us.

A joint service for both Robert and Virginia will be held at St John’s United Methodist, where they had been active members, 6900 Ward Parkway, Kansas City, MO on August 12, 2023. A visitation will be at 11:30 AM.