Robert Arnold Hughes

Robert Arnold Hughes, 55, businessman and civic leader, beloved husband of Lisa Reichert Hughes, dear father of Jessie Robert Hughes and Samuel Parks Hughes, and exuberant brother of Raymond Sutton Hughes, died peacefully on December 22, 2012 at his home in Thomasville, after 28 months of courageous and intrepid living with metastatic colon cancer—unflagging in his energy, spirits, and humor. A fifth-generation descendant--and namesake--of a pioneering Thomas County family, he was born in Thomasville on July 28th, 1957, the younger son of Doris Sutton Hughes and Samuel Osco Hughes, Jr. His great-great grandfather, John Peter Arnold, came to Thomasville from Boppard-on-the-Rhine, Germany, in the 1840s and founded Arnold Brickyard, which produced the bricks for many of Thomasville's eminent residences and commercial buildings until 1973. He graduated from the Brookwood School in 1975, where he was a member of Brookwood's first football team, and after earning a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration and Economics from the University of Georgia in 1979, began a 33-year career with the Flowers Corporation, being based successively in West Palm Beach, Houston, Tampa, Charlotte, and Baton Rouge, before his transfer back to Corporate Headquarters in Thomasville in 1992. At the time of his death, he was Director of Category Management in the Flowers Foods National Accounts Team. Following in the footsteps of his father, who was a founding member of the Thomasville Exchange Club, he remained enthusiastically involved with Exchange Club meetings and with the Deep South Fair until the very end of his life. He served as President of the Exchange Club in 2007. A member of the First United Methodist Church in Thomasville, he also worked with the Thomasville City Schools' Mentoring Project for the past seven years. His mother and father preceded him in death. In addition to his wife, his sons, and his brother, his survivors include an aunt, Virginia Niblo Hughes, of Thomasville; his only first cousin, Mary Jane Snowden White and her husband, Tom, of Fitzgerald; their daughters: Alecia White Barrett and her husband, Thomas, and their son, Bradlee, of Soperton, and Allison White Norris and her husband, Brian, of Douglas; dear family friend, Norman Dunfee, of New York City; the mother of his sons, Joy Salter, of Thomasville; cousin Martha Fletcher Mobley and her husband, Dr. Ed Mobley, of Bainbridge; his parents-in-law, Johnny and Nancy Reichert of Thomasville; his stepdaughters: Allison Griner Griswold, her husband, Dallas, and their daughter, Jaylee, of Albany; Jenna Griner and her son, Braelen, of Moultrie; and Lori Griner of Athens; the extended Arnold family in Thomasville and the extended White and Brown families in Fitzgerald; his lifelong best friend, Stephens Varnedoe, of Columbia, South Carolina; as well as his many friends and colleagues in the Flowers Corporation family, and in the Thomasville Exchange Club. His family is especially grateful to Dr. Robert Wolff of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, whose generous and graciously compassionate treatment enabled Robert to have an abundant life among family and friends—which included his being able to attend almost every University of Georgia football game--since his diagnosis in 2010; and to Flowers Foods and to the community-at-large for the many acts of kindness and support during the time of his illness. A celebration of Christ's Resurrection and of Robert's life, conducted by the Reverend Judith Ann Jones of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Thomasville, and the Right Reverend James Hampton of Lifespring Community Evangelical Episcopal Church in Tampa, Florida, will be held on Saturday, December 29th, 2012, at 11 a.m. at Thomasville's First Baptist Church, followed by a reception at 5 p.m. at the Thomasville Exchange Club House at the Deep South Fairgrounds on Remington Avenue. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, memorial donations be made to the American Cancer Society at www.cancer.org or by phone at 1-800-227-2345, or to another charity of your choice. Family and friends are invited to sign the online guest register at www.allenfh.com