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By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer
reporter@arkcity.net

Hollywood filmmaker Mike Robe, who grew up in Arkansas City, cast his vote Monday to end the entertainment writers strike in Los Angeles, Robe said.

"I supported the strike, and am very glad a settlement has been reached," Robe said in an e-mail to the Traveler.

"Matter of fact, I just faxed to the WGA my vote to lift the restraining order and end the strike."

Robe said he has been a member of the Writers Guild of America for the past 25 years.

Media reports are that the strike is over and writers are ready to return to writing scripts for TV and movies. But Robe said in his e-mail that an actual ratification vote is expected in about 10 days.

He said he spent time on the picket line with his daughter, Blythe Robe, also a Hollywood writer and member of the WGA.

Robe grew up in Ark City in the 1950s and 1960s and has fond memories of his life here, he has said. He is a 1962 graduate of Arkansas City High School. He attended the University of Kansas, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1966 and a master's degree in 1968.

"I was kind of a all-around student, I hope, in a way," Robe said in an interview posted on the Internet. "I did a lot of the athletics -- I was the quarterback on the football team; I was the guard on the basketball team; but I was also one of the actors in the school play and I was also in Boys State, so I had a wonderful upbringing by two lovely parents."

He developed an interest in drama by the time he left Ark City to study at KU, he said. "(I had the) idea that I would be an actor.

"And I started in the theatre program (at KU) -- liked it very much, but as I approached a major, I began to feel like maybe this is not something that I can trust my livelihood to."

But he ended up following his passion for film and writing, producing dozens of movies for television over several decades.

Above: Arkansas City native Mike Robe and his daughter, Blythe Robe, walk the picket line together in January in front of 20th Century Fox studios in Los Angeles.