Du Quoin's Bob Baron's work is subject of Discovery Life segment
Du Quoin native Robert Barron and patient Donnie Fritts will appear on the television show called "Body Bizarre" which will air on Discovery Life Channel. The episode is titled "My Baby's Got An Extra Head." The date will be March 14, 2015 at 8 p.m. central daylight time. Please recheck your local listing for time and channel in your area. If you miss this episode it will also air on March 15, 2015 at 11 p.m.. Make sure you are watching the Discovery Life Channel and not the regular Discovery channel.
Donnie has suffered from a rare cancer called ameloblastic carcinoma. Barron has designed a mid-face silicone prosthetic device for Donnie Fritts that has restored his faith in life.
Bob's art is as lifelike as life itself--in his drawings, as senior disguise specialist for the CIA for 24 years and as founder of his prosthetic design company called Custom Prosthetic Designs of Ashburn, Virginia. There, he makes the lives of the disfigured and cancer stricken whole again. In retirement, he uses his skill and his humanity to turn "factory seconds" into beautiful and confident people again. There is no greater calling.
Bob grew up in Du Quoin the son of the late Bette and Phil Barron. After completing a degree in commercial art at SIU in Carbondale, he spent four years in the United States Marine Corps and was offered a job at the Pentagon in the office of Chief of Naval Operations as the art director for "Directions" magazine, the Navy's public affairs quarterly. After two years, he was recruited by the CIA to work in the graphic arts department. He was involved in three overseas assignments and worked with the team that provided various traditional and advanced disguises for American officers and operatives. The disguises needed to be realistic enough to pass close scrutiny in order to protect their lives. Any imperfection and the lives of Americans were at risk. He achieved every disguise by asking himself one important question. "Would I be safe in this?" He comes by the CIA label of "Master of Disguise" honestly. On more than one occasion, Bob Barron's disguises changed the course of history.
In 1983 Bob attended a conference of the Association of Biomedical Sculptors. He was there to find out if the civilian sector had any new materials or techniques to offer his disguise creations. The CIA was ahead of the private sector, but it provided a defining moment in Bob's decision to begin his own company and his own practice at retirement. He saw people disfigured by birth defects and burns and automobile accidents--and cancer. If he could change identifies, he could give back identities. Every freckle and hair are perfect. To this day he does it like no one else.
When he retired from the CIA with a rare special commendation from the agency's director, he opened his new lab. He began designing prosthetic ears, eyes, noses and full face masks for burn patients. He helped patients return to society and made them free of stares and embarrassment. For his patients, no more hiding. No more suicide attempts. He provided the answer that reconstructive surgery couldn't.
Every day, he puts his "best face forward," and when he makes someone smile, it's truly ear-to-ear.