‘Pillar in our community’

Debby Jones laughs when she recalls the scene.

Her longtime friend, Fred Hill, was undergoing physical rehabilitation in Folkston, and her son, Samuel Muldoon, had gifted the former professor and journalist a pair of blue jogging pants with a “white racing stripe.” Hill, known more for his penchant to don ties, wore the new pants for a couple of days and sent them to laundry. A mix-up ensued, and another man in the rehab facility was spotted wearing Hill’s pants a few days later.

“He chased that guy down,” Jones said. “And he insisted they were his pants. He made the guy take them off right there and give them back. He said, ‘Those are my racing pants.’”

Hill, the former news editor at the Southeast Georgian and a longtime columnist for the Tribune & Georgian, died Thursday, Aug. 13. He was 88.

“He was pretty much a pillar in our community,” Jones said. He won multiple awards for his writing.”

Hill and his wife, Drenda, were Jones’ neighbors. When Hill’s wife died, Jones and her sons “adopted” him, and he often told people Jones' two children were his grandsons.

“Fred was the best blessing for my kids,” she said. “He was an extra grandpa. He was brilliant. There was no better person. He was articulate and dapper and a good influence. There was no better person you could have hanging around with your kids.”

Community Newspapers Inc. Chairman Alan NeSmith worked with Hill when NeSmith was the Tribune & Georgian’s publisher. He called Hill a character who wrote great “slice of life” columns.

“Fred always came in on Sunday afternoons to work on his column,” NeSmith said. “One day, I made the comment that I just don’t like Mondays. He said, ‘Well, start working on Sunday afternoons.’ That was Fred’s cure. If you hate working Mondays, just work Sunday.”

NeSmith said Hill also helped proofread the newspaper in a unique style.

“He would read everything backwards,” NeSmith said. “He’s the only person I knew who proofread the newspaper backwards. That was his way of making sure there weren’t any typos in the Tribune & Georgian.”

Hill grew up in Georgia and Alabama, and after high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. After two years of service, he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Birmingham Southern and a doctorate at Auburn University. He taught English to college students and eventually landed in Camden County. 

Hill began writing for the Southeast Georgian and then the Camden County Tribune. He then taught at Valdosta State University and was a contributing columnist to the Tribune & Georgian. A collection of his columns were reprinted in a book, “You May As Well Laugh.”

“I mainly wrote about things that grabbed my attention that week,” Hill said in an interview in fall 2022 edition of Manor Living, a quarterly magazine produced by Magnolia Manor Senior Living. “I also wrote about personal struggles, but I did it with humor. I was proud that after doing all these columns that someone was interested in putting them in a book. Really, I’m a writer first and a teacher second.”

“Fred and Drenda loved my boys like they were his own grandkids,” Jones said. “Once Drenda passed away, we never stopped that bond and it grew tighter. … We loved him like family.”

A graveside service with military honors will be 10:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 4, at Oak Grove Cemetery in St. Marys.