Alex Floyd
Local Columnist
In Psalm 37, David speaks of The Righteous Man: Verse 23 “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. 24 Though he falls, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.”
Verse 37: “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.”
Pembroke got about as close as we could get to a Righteous Man in Rev. Dr. Robert G. Hughes. Bob Hughes passed on January 3 and was laid to rest by his beloved wife Mrs. Virgene this past Saturday after nearly 89 years of life.
Four generations of my family had the privilege to know him. My great grandparents knew and loved him, my grandmother went to school with him, he was my father’s Boy Scout Troop leader and mentor. He was a faithful and helpful friend to me working in Pembroke, and he was the first person outside of my family that I told that I was running for Commissioner.
He was an intellectual from another age. A genius in almost every sense of the word, he could speak with authority on most any subject. It’s a shame he never made it on Jeopardy, he’d have been a millionaire in a week. No flora or fauna was strange to him. No people, tribe or language was foreign. No subject escaped his attention. His son Duncan put it well in his eulogy, “Before Google, we had Bob G. Hughes.”
He was a grassroots philanthropist. One of the first times I remember meeting him, he was sitting outside the laundromat with rolls of quarters in case someone came up short. He moved more food through the county food bank than some Walmarts will ever see. He paid motel bills, bought gas and tires, cut grass and whatever else needed doing with no motive or recognition sought. He was called and he went.
He was a professor, collector and archivist. Dr. Hughes taught at Georgia Southern, Savannah Tech and Brewton-Parker and had maybe the most impressive private collection of books, references and manuscripts I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how he found anything in it all but I guarantee he could’ve. Tibet has monks that guard with their lives thousands of ancient scrolls. Pembroke had Bob Hughes.
He was an investor in humanity. He took young scouts who’d never spent the night away from home on weeklong camps canoeing down the Ohoopee teaching skills and imparting knowledge that is still being used and passed on today. At an age when most men consider how to retire, he helped found the Youth Challenge Academy on Fort Stewart. For 20 years, he took young people who listened to no one and held them spellbound with lectures. He changed lives in and out of the classroom as evidenced by many graduates who attended his funeral.
He was above all a righteous man. He was a minister of the Advent Church (the little brick one between Renasant Bank and the Courthouse). He knew the Bible like he knew to breathe. He let Scripture govern his daily walk and made the Great Commission his earthly mission. One time that my dad caught me totally speechless was when we pulled up to Mr. Hughes’ little church and he said “That’s where I learned to preach.” As a kid he’d attend Sunday School at the Christian Church then run across town to the Advent Church. Bob Floyd don’t preach y’all, but apparently it’s not because he doesn’t know how.
I am glad that he is with his God, Mrs. Virgene, several siblings, two sons and so many friends in Heaven but he will be greatly missed by many.
When folks like him leave communities like ours they take a piece of our soul that is hard to replace. Somebody better get prepared because someday someone will come to town with hungry children, dirty clothes, a flat tire and questions about the Ancient Assyrians and we won’t have Bob Hughes.
Floyd is part of the Bryan County Commissioners, representing District 1.