“I love you” always closed the conversations that Jim Herbert had with family members.
He was 5 when his father died in a hunting accident. He and his sister were raised by their working mother and an extended family of aunts, uncles and grandparents.
“Family was the most important thing in his life,” said daughter Kathy Becker of Omaha.
James A. Herbert, 87, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at Immanuel Fontenelle Home, Becker said.
Herbert had twin careers as a certified public accountant with his own firm, Herbert Weist and Associates, and as an accounting professor at Creighton University. He already was an established CPA when veterans returning after World War II swelled the university’s student population. Herbert was asked to teach at his alma mater. He stayed 28 years.
Herbert was active in several professional organizations, including the Nebraska Society of CPAs, which he served as president. While serving on the Nebraska Board of Public Accountancy, he was responsible for requiring that CPA candidates take an ethics exam.
He received the 1983 John P. Begley Distinguished Service Award from Creighton’s College of Business Administration. Then-Gov. Ben Nelson gave him the Governor’s Award for Philanthropic Planning in 1995.
Herbert was an officer and a director of several private charitable foundations and, as an accountant, he assisted others in making philanthropic gifts.
In his private life, Herbert was the top fundraiser for nine straight years for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Nebraska Chapter, his family said.
Other survivors include his wife, Helen C. Herbert of Omaha; children Jim Herbert of Omaha, Mary Humann of Spokane, Wash., Tom Herbert of Omaha, Nancy Galloway of Blair, Neb., John Herbert of Lincoln, Patti Donney of Fort Dodge, Iowa, Don Herbert of Aurora, Mo., and Tim Herbert of Omaha; 29 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, 123 N. 61st St.
Contact the writer:
444-1165, sue.truax@owh.com
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