[1] However, Holcomb left UC-Berkeley before completing his bachelor's degree in order to enlist in the U.S. Army on October 13, 1942.
[2] Holcomb returned to the University of California, Berkeley, where he completed his Bachelor of Arts in law on June 16, 1949.
[1][2] During the 1964 election, voters in the eastern San Bernardino Valley were asked in a ballot question whether they wanted to keep the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District as an independent entity or merge it into the neighboring Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
[1] To counter the influence of The San Bernardino Sun-Telegram editorial page on the water issue, Holcomb founded and distributed his own small, weekly newspaper, "The Independent Press" (later re-founded as the city's major weekly published media retitled "San Bernardino's Free Press"), to publish opposition views of the proposal.
[2] Holcomb successfully led the election campaign to retain the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District's independence.
[1] Voters defeated the proposal in 1964 and Holcomb has since been widely credited with retaining San Bernardino's local water rights.
[1] An eleven-foot statue of Martin Luther King Jr. was also installed in San Bernardino under Holcomb's direction.
[4] Holcomb died of heart failure at Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Medical Center in Loma Linda, California, on November 29, 2010, at the age of 88.