Bobby Dale Shields

Bobby Dale Shields

 "BDS," "Lucky Bob," "Lucky," "Bingo Bob" 

A larger than life personality, a charmer, everyone's favorite. "That's a good one."

April 19, 1947 — Aug. 19, 2026

There is a particular kind of person whose life resists the tidy chronology of an obituary, and Bobby Dale Shields was exactly that kind of person. He answered to multiple names, told the same story a dozen different ways depending on his audience and the room, and generally treated communication the way a good host treats a party — as something to be arranged for maximum pleasure. If you'd heard the story before, he'd simply give you a better version. Who's the wiser? He was right.

Bobby arrived in Shreveport on April 19, 1947, and reset the lives of Elizabeth, Oell Kermit, and Baron Shields the moment he did — Bobby was born to the talent for rearranging the mood of a room, a talent he would keep sharpening for the next seventy-nine years. He graduated C.E. Byrd High School in 1965 having already worked, by his own generous accounting, half the odd jobs in Caddo Parish: lawn care, paper boy, lifeguard, and more on a "short list" that grew longer with every telling.

Rather than wait for the Army to come find him, Bobby made the strategic — and, he would insist, purely aesthetic — decision to join the Navy instead. Bell bottoms, he reasoned, were simply more flattering. During his time in the Navy he encountered the wild vast ocean, liberty, and also Agent Orange. He also turned out to be the entity rumored to roam the deck at night: his shipmates discovered Bobby had neglected to mention at enlistment he was a habitual sleepwalker.

But it was the private club — equal parts pleasure and structure — that gave Bobby his real medium. He studied management at Northwestern and then set about proving that a club is not just a building with a bar in it, but a kind of theater, and he meant to run the best stages in town. Jackson's City Club. The Petroleum Club. The Shreveport Country Club. East Ridge Country Club. Each one taught him something and was lifted by his enthusiasm. By the early 1990s Bobby decided he'd like to really make his mark on a club — so he became the President and CEO of The University Club of Caddo Parish. Just ask anyone who has spent time in the private club world here who were the best managers they ever experienced, and you will hear his name. Not because he ran a tight room, though he did, but because he understood that the whole point of a club is to make people feel like the evening was made just for them. A rare skill.

Two loves anchored a life otherwise built on charm and improvisation. The first was his daughter, Melissa — the one relationship in Bobby's life that never wavered, never needed a better version told. "Women can come and go," he liked to say, "but my baby girl is always there." She was. The second was Sherry Barnes Shields, whom he met in 2008 at East Ridge Country Club — his favorite stage — in a courtship the entire membership watched unfold, and cheered on.

And then there were the grandchildren. They knew a different Bobby than the club world did — the one who showed up to ballgames as the biggest, loudest fan in the bleachers, entirely unembarrassed about it, and the one who made the family's regular trips to the beach feel like an event worth circling on the calendar every single year. It was, everyone agreed, the same showman underneath, just working a smaller and more devoted 1 room. And you always knew he was in it: Bobby had a smile people noticed from across a room, and a laugh — genuine, unguarded, entirely too loud for most indoor spaces — that was as infectious as anything about him.

The truth is no obituary can hold a man this large without spilling over the edges of the page, and anyone lucky enough to have known Bobby Shields understands exactly what that means. You know the version of your favorite story he ever told you. Someone else has a different version. Both are great stories.

Bobby is survived by his beloved wife and devoted caregiver, Sherry Barnes Shields; his daughter, Melissa Shields Holsapple, her husband — known as "Bobby's favorite son" — Bradley, and grandchildren Brayden and Braxton; son Eric Barnes, and grandchildren Reese and Evan Barnes; his brother, Baron Shields, and Baron's wife, Mary Ann; Shannon and Olivia Evans, nieces and nephews, and a constellation of cousins, known collectively and affectionately as "The Cousins”.

He loved them all, and made sure every one of them knew it.

As his daughter Melissa said when saying goodbye to him for the last time:

"This world will be a darker place without his light.”

Bobby was fond of repeating the old sailor's rhyme: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." He'd used it so often, over so many decades, that it had become more like a general check-in with the sky. On the morning of August 19th, his wife and his daughter walked out of the hospital together, about to head toward their separate cars. Both looked up. Both saw the same red sky. Neither had to say why it mattered — Bobby's voice was already there with them, vivid as ever, still finding the detail that would stay with you forever.

A memorial service for Bobby will be held at 2:00 p.m. at Rose-Neath Funeral Home, 1815 Marshall St., Shreveport, Louisiana on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 followed by a Celebration of Life service at East Ridge Country Club, 1000 Stewart Dr, Shreveport, LA 71106.