Robert Lee Fulton "Bob" Sikes (3 June 1906-28 September 1994) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-FL 3) from 3 January 1941 to 3 January 1963 (succeeding Millard Caldwell and preceding Claude Pepper) and from FL-1 from 3 January 1963 to 3 January 1979 (succeeding William C. Cramer and preceding Earl Hutto).
Biography[]
Robert Lee Fulton Sikes was born in Sylvester, Georgia in 1906, and he worked in publishing in Crestview in the Florida Panhandle from 1933 to 1946. He went on to enter politics as a Democrat, serving in the US House of Representatives from 1941 to 1979, with a brief interruption from 19 October 1944 to 3 January 1945, when he served as a US Army Major during World War II before President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled all congresspeople serving on active duty to attend to their offices. After the war's end, Sikes' district began to split its vote between Republican presidential candidates and Southern Democratic local candidates, and the staunchly conservative Sikes never won less than 80% of the vote. He was reprimanded by the House on 26 July 1976 for financial misconduct, blaming his reprimand on a conspiracy by "flaming liberals". He retired in 1979 and died in 1994 at the age of 88.