Retired Ludlow Restaurateur. Past Chairman of the Ludlow Village Board of Trustees dies July 9th.

Robert N. Gilmore III succumbed to a decades long illness on Thursday, July 9th as a patient in the Jack Byrne Center for Palliative and Hospice Care at Dartmouth Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Lebanon New Hampshire.

Bob, a Ludlow resident since 1975 owned and operated the venerated Nikki's Restaurant at the base of Okemo Mountain for nearly thirty years. He sold the business and retired in 2006. Along the way, Nikki's earned numerous accolades including a Wine Spectator award of excellence spanning nearly fifteen years. In addition, the restaurant earned 3 Stars in the esteemed Mobil Travel Guide.

His civic contributions included terms on the Vermont National Bank Board of Directors, President of the Ludlow Chamber of Commerce, an Officer for the Ludlow Board of Trustees since 1988, an elected position, and Vice Chairman of the Ludlow Water Commission. Bob also served as a member of the Norris Cotton Cancer Research Center Board of Directors for twelve years beginning in 1990 and ending in 2002.

On July 6th, the Town and Village of Ludlow, Vermont passed a resolution dedicating the former Lamere Square pedestrian bridge in Bob's honor renaming it the Robert N. Gilmore Footbridge.

In 2005 he was among 24 individuals chosen to participate in the Bristol Myers Squibb Lance Armstrong "Tour of Hope" to promote awareness of the pursuit of clinical trials in cancer research. The Tour took him from San Diego California to Washington DC over the course of eight days by bicycle. The riders consisted of cancer survivors and clinicians in the field of cancer research. They were met on October 9th in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Tammy on a wet and stormy day on the Washington Mall by over a thousand people who turned out to greet them. Bob often remarked that The Tour was one of the high points of his life.

Bob's journey as a cancer patient and then as a survivor became the defining experience of his life. After beating seemingly insurmountable odds, he went on to a marriage that lasted until his death and had two children along the way. His diagnosis in 1992 was for stage 4 metastatic melanoma with high morbidity.  He would have none of it.

Bob leaves behind a legion of friends and family on both coasts of the country as well as relations in England and Ireland. He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Beth Oldenburg, a lifelong Ludlow resident and their two children, a daughter Blakely, an elementary school teacher in Chester, Vermont and a son Taylor, a diesel mechanic. In addition, he is survived by his siblings Phoebe Tanner of Richmond, California; Blake, currently a resident of Calistoga, California in the Napa Valley, a place Bob loved to visit in recent years; and a brother David, of Brooklyn New York.

A memorial and gathering will be announced at a later date.