Athlete. Omaha Tech High School Class of 1955.  Bob Boozer's basketball talent in high school impressed the basketball world well beyond the Nebraska border, especially during a 25-point per game pace as a high-school senior and All-Stater  in 1955.  The major colleges recruited him and he went off to Kansas State and became an All-American in 1958 and 1959. He is the only Nebraska high school player to first-team all-American honors at the top level of college basketball.  K-State honored him as the leading vote-getter on its 10-man Team of the Century. "We were No. 1 in the nation for part of my junior year. We made it to the Final Four. We were undefeated in the Big Eight," he said..

The Omahan won a gold medal with the 1960 U.S. Olympic team. Later, in his post-basketball life in hometown Omaha,  he completed an Olympic torch run through Omaha by lighting a cauldron that was part of a downtown ceremony. "It was a great experience and brought back memories of 1960 in Rome," he said.

He was the first player picked in the 1959 NBA draft and played 11 years in the NBA with Chicago, Seattle, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, New York and Los Angeles  He was an NBA All-Star in 1968 and won an NBA championship in 1971. 

Boozer spent 27 years working at Northwestern Bell, which became U.S. West. The last 10 of those years were as a federal lobbyist. He retired in 1997 and soon after was selected to serve on the Nebraska Board of Parole.