John Bowles; Civic Leader, Former President of Rexall

John Bowles, retired president of Rexall Drug Co. International, indefatigable booster of Los Angeles’ historic Olvera Street, and nationally honored civic leader, has died at the age of 76.

Bowles, who maintained a home in Los Angeles and a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, died Wednesday night at Santa Ynez Valley Hospital of cancer.

A stockroom clerk who rose to head Rexall, Bowles in 1963 won the national Horatio Alger award named for successful individuals whose real lives parallel the fictional rags to riches stories by writer Horatio Alger.

In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented Bowles with a public service citation for his efforts to promote national voter registration and voting through his 10,000 drugstores.

“By encouraging fellow Americans to vote and making it easier for them to do so,” the citation noted, “the members of the Rexall family have set an example for all businesses and have done their utmost to ensure the permanence of the American way of life.”

During Bowles’ tenure at the helm of Rexall, he also developed the “1-cent sale” marketing technique and opened the first Western chain drugstore behind the Iron Curtain.

Of his many civic endeavors, Bowles perhaps took the most pride in his designation as padrino , or godfather, of Olvera Street, the crucible of Los Angeles. He served for more than 20 years as president of Los Amigos del Pueblo de Los Angeles, a support group dedicated to preserving the history and traditions of the city’s Mexican-American heritage.

“What we have here must be preserved,” Bowles told The Times during 1985 efforts to restore Campo Santo (Holy Field), Los Angeles’ first cemetery, near the Old Plaza Church on Olvera Street. “Some of the first families of California may still be buried here.”

Ever the soft-spoken Southern gentleman, Bowles was a seventh-generation North Carolinian who graduated from the University of North Carolina and served as a Navy commander in the South Pacific during World War II.

Intrigued by Southern California when he visited to buy actor Leo Carrillo’s stallion for his horse breeding farm near Greensboro, N.C., Bowles moved to Bel-Air after the war.

Bowles was founder and chairman of the California Wine Patrons of the Museum of Science and Industry; grand officer of Confrerie des Chevaliers du Tastevin; a trustee of St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica; advisory board member to Pepperdine University and UCLA; on the board of the Southwest Museum; a lay leader of the Westwood United Methodist Church; a board member of the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry, and member of the President’s Committee for Community Relations.

A veteran and an enthusiastic equestrian and carriage driver, Bowles joined Rancheros Visitadores in 1948 and was master of foxhounds of the West Hills Hunt, active in the Santa Ynez Valley Hunt, the Kildare Hunt in Ireland and the Duke of Rutland Hunt in England. He also drove in the Santa Ynez Carriage Classic and was popular as a horse show judge.

Bowles is survived by his wife of 43 years, the former Norma Louise Landwehr; four children, Luisa Kolla of San Francisco, Kelly Bowles Gray of College Park, Md., John Hargrove Bowles of Benares, India, and Norma Elizabeth Bowles of Los Angeles; a brother, Richard K. Bowles of Greensboro, N.C., and one grandson.

Memorial services are scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m. at St. Mark’s-in-the-Valley Episcopal Church, Los Olivos.

The family has requested that any memorial donations be made to Los Amigos del Pueblo de Los Angeles, 14724 Ventura Blvd. Suite 1000, Sherman Oaks, Calif. 91403.