'Father of Peeps' Bob Born Dies at 98

Ira Bob Born, a candy company executive known as the Father of Peeps for mechanizing the process to make marshmallow chicks, has died, according to the Lehigh Valley News. He was 98.

Born was born in New York City on Sept. 29, 1924. His father, Sam Born, was a Russian immigrant who had founded Just Born Inc., a small candy company, in 1923. The family later moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where Just Born is still based.

Bob Born graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in engineering physics. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served as a radar specialist and a lieutenant on a destroyer in the Pacific. Later, the Navy sent him to the University of Arizona and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate work in math and physics.

Born applied to medical school and was accepted, but while he was waiting for his classes to begin, he went to work at Just Born. He fell in love with the candy business and decided to stay.