We were upset to hear about the death of Bob Laubach last Friday in Syracuse (NY – The USA) even though he died at the ripe age of 96. Bob Laubach was the person who made the most use of our Kukuxumusu postcards and who, as far we know, sent the most cards of anyone in the whole world. Each year he would send off some 250 postcards all around the globe and he always used Kukuxumusu postcards. We have calculated that he would have sent off more than 6.000 ever since he first started back in the early ‘90s. In an interview he did in 2012, Laubach told us how he would always get a good laugh when he found some new Kukuxumusu drawings on the postcards and that is why he used them: “Whoever received the Kukuxumusu postcards, would first be surprised, but then they would soon be laughing at them and always they would look forward to receiving more of them.”

Sending off so many postcards had a solid reason in the life of Laubach since he, and his father before him, participated directly through the NGO, ProLiteracy, in the teaching of writing and reading to more than a 100 million adults in 96 different languages. This particular NGO centered its activities in thirty underdeveloped countries and had more than one million volunteer workers in its ranks. Bob Laubach always had a keen interest in Reading and Writing and as a young man he graduated in Journalism and later took a Doctorate in Education. During the Second World War he was a conscientious objector and first began to dedicate his time to the teaching of Reading and Writing. This he continued for more than 70 years while he also began to work in giving journalism classes at Syracuse University and to work on producing books for teaching Reading and Writing to adults around the world. He founded a publishing company to produce educational material who has more than 400 books published to help teach Reading and Writing,as well as provide a news service for adult learners.