Bob Ronka - Biography

Biography

Ronka was born about 1943, the son of Ilmari Ronka, first-chair trombonist in the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and Loraine Vera Aalbu of Minneapolis, Minnesota, who worked with her sisters as vaudeville artists. Besides Bob, there was a daughter, Harriet (later Hodge). The family moved to California in 1945, and Ronka attended North Hollywood High School, where he played trombone in a dance-band workshop that studied music ranging from the big-band sound of the early 1930s to the progressive jazz of Stan Kenton. He also played with the Dixie Smallfry youth group sponsored by radio-television personality Bill Baldwin.

A Phi Beta Kappa student at Stanford University, Ronka earned a law degree at Harvard University before serving in the Army in Vietnam, where he was awarded a Bronze Star.