1957 - 1961
BFA in sculpture; University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
“In the interim Krebs would pursue the rather typical course of the serious student artist, majoring in sculpture at the University of Kansas with the mid-western sculptors Elden Tefft, Bernard Fraizer, Jim Bass and James Sterrit. The fact of his long artistic apprenticeship has been overlooked because he appeared to most art world observers to have been born with lasers in the sixties. This inaccuracy has cast him into the role of technocrat, an arena that the art world considers suspect, due in part I think to the vastly larger relevance our society extends to technology over the fine arts.” Jay Belloli, 1990
1960
In the summer of 1960 Rockne applied for and was accepted to assist Thomas Hart Benton, who was creating his mural “Independence and the Opening of the West” at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.
“I somehow missed this very interesting posting the first time around [2015]. My guess is that what impressed Rockne the most about the experience was the ambitious scale of Benton's piece and its grand public theme. The artistic vocabulary is of course very different, but these are notable characteristics of his own mature works with lasers and other light mediums.”
- Benjamin F. Forgey, December 3, 2022
1962 - 1965
U.S. Navy Reserve, Lieutenant jg
Rockne Krebs’s first neon piece was made in 1962. While serving in the U.S. Navy he designed the neon sign for his family’s place, The Krebs Lighthouse Lodge on Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks in Missouri. His father and brother brought Rockne’s drawing plans for the sign to a neon company and had it made. Rockne’s parents and youngest brother, Art, built the entire Krebs Lighthouse Lodge. His father, Arthur S. Krebs II, had a degree in electrical engineering.
— Table Rock Lake, Kimberling City, Missouri.
— Table Rock Lake, Kimberling City, Missouri.