The Elkmont community is mourning the loss of a well-known and well-loved local figure who served the town as not just a town councilmember and farmer but friend, family member and more.

Jessie Hobbs III was a member of the fifth generation to manage Hobbs Farms in Elkmont. The married father of four was a 1993 graduate of Elkmont High and 1998 graduate of Auburn University, telling The News Courier last year that it wasn’t until after he came home from college that his mother “allowed” him to join the farm.

“He’d been offered positions with ALFA and all this, and people thought he might get into politics, but his love in life was that farm,” Collin Daly, lifelong friend of Hobbs, said Tuesday. “I never met anybody who loved the land (like he did).”

Daly was born a couple years after Hobbs, each a son in a family of Elkmont farmers, and the two grew up together. Daly recalled playing toy tractors as kids and how his granddad and Hobbs’ dad often worked together.

And while farming was his first love, it wasn’t the only way Hobbs served his community. He ran for a seat on the Elkmont Town Council as a young adult, and Daly remembered how Hobbs’ dad warned him to only run if he was going to take it seriously.

“He said, ‘Now, son, I wanna tell you something. If you’re running for this thing for a joke, you need to get out (of the race). But if you’re gonna get there, do the best you can do,'” Daly said. “And Jessie has done extremely well.”

Hobbs was one of the youngest — if not the youngest — to ever be elected to the Elkmont Town Council, according to Daly. While some may have expected him to quit after a term or two, he continued serving, all the way up until his death Saturday.

“The community meant that much to him,” Daly said.

He meant that much to the community, too.

“The town of Elkmont suffered a great loss,” Tracy Compton, who serves as Elkmont’s mayor, said. “… His contributions to the community are well known beyond his official duties on the Council.”

Compton recalled how Hobbs helped clear the streets of Elkmont last winter, using his own equipment for the job. He said Hobbs was regularly performing acts of kindness for the town, Elkmont High School and anyone in the community.

“Words cannot express the deep sorrow and sense of loss that I personally feel and share with so many, that extends well beyond the town limits,” Compton said.

Hobbs was 46 when he died. As news of his death spread through the community, hundreds worked to in some way pay back the comfort and support he had provided over the years. Posts to social media included memories of Hobbs and prayers for his family, and Daly said a local store ran out of 2-liters because people kept stopping by to pick up drinks or items to bring the family.

Others brought homemade food or visited for a meal with Hobbs’ grieving family — a fitting tribute to a Southern man who helped provide food not just for the stomach but for the spirit.

“He had a connection — that connection he had with people — I don’t think there’s a person in Limestone County that’s not in tragedy or shock, especially in a tightknit group like Elkmont,” Daly said. “… You could interview everybody in Limestone County, they’d all have the same statement — he was loved by everyone.”

Hobbs’ obituary, published on page 3A of today’s paper, lists his parents, children and wife among those he left behind. Daly said Hobbs was the kind of hard-working man who loved his kids dearly and fought to be there for every ball game or event, sometimes working right up until he had to be at the ballfield, then “running to the ballfield wide open” to see the game.

And given that work is a family business, it wasn’t uncommon to see his sons working on the farm. In fact, last October, family members from across the country made the trip to Elkmont for a cotton-picking reunion. They even had special T-shirts made for the event.

“Food, family, faith and fellowship — that’s just always been our big thing, and we always have a good time,” Hobbs told The News Courier that day.

Daly said he always figured Hobbs would be around to speak at his funeral, because he knew Hobbs would rush in right before service started and be able to tell the best jokes or stories. For example, how Hobbs was one of the first to call Daly after Daly decided to make his run for a seat in local politics, or how Hobbs called him “Big Boy” after the Frisch’s restaurant mascot, or how they’d joke about going to the moon together.

“‘If I ever have to go to the moon on a rocket, I’m gonna take you with me,'” Daly recalled. “He said, ‘Between you and me, I know we’ll get back.”

Instead, Daly joins so many others in Limestone County and around the world, suddenly faced with an unavoidable reminder that a long life isn’t guaranteed.

“To have a 20-minute conversation with him Friday and not be able to call today — it’s hard to believe,” Daly said. “… He made it to the moon. He made it to Heaven before me.”