By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer
More than 1,000 friends, family members and community residents came together on Wednesday to pay their respects and bid farewell to longtime local farmer and community pillar Rob Hogan.
The ninth-generation family farmer was remembered as a husband, father, friend, conservationist and caregiver who touched the lives of many. Those who knew him recalled his willingness to listen, his persistence, love of jokes and a knack for befriending almost anyone.
“There was an inclusiveness about Rob that didn’t matter ‘bout money, didn’t matter ‘bout race, didn’t matter ‘bout education,†said Hogan’s cousin Don Basnight. “He moved easily between the communities.
“He could sell a tree hugger firewood,†Basnight explained.
Hogan, who turned 54 during a three-week stay in the hospital, had been in intensive care after he fell from his tractor on Sept. 15. He had been working in the field until 11 p.m. and missed the last step while climbing down from the tractor, landing with his full weight on his hip.
Complications developed, and while Hogan’s condition had improved during his stay in the hospital, his health deteriorated rapidly last week.
Hogan lived on Hogan’s Magnolia View Farm outside of Carrboro, where the Hogan family has farmed for more than 240 years. The farm is also home to Rameses, the UNC football team mascot.
“He just exemplified what it means to really be attached to where you were born and to really have a sense of where you were in the community,†said Mary Ayers, who grew up in Calvander and has known the Hogan family as long as she can remember. “He was a genuine person. And he was so representative of his family.â€
A lover of the land
Many of those who knew Hogan speak of his love of the outdoors when remembering him.
Basnight and Hogan grew up spending a lot of time outdoors, boating, camping and hiking.
“I had a lot of fun times with Rob in the woods,†Basnight said.
Twenty-five years ago, they took their first organized winter camping trip, no women or children allowed, which evolved into an annual event. But during one of those outings, the men almost had to cut their vacation short.
“We had this beautiful peanut field that we had found on the Cashie River and we named it Bear Vista,†Basnight said. The group went off exploring for the day and returned to find a note on Hogan’s sleeping bag telling them that the land was private property and that they needed to leave.
There wasn’t a soul in sight, Basnight said. “You couldn’t see the other end of the field,†so the group had no idea who the note had come from.
“I noticed Rob just took the note and walked out,†he said.
Hogan was gone for a couple of hours before returning in the truck of a local farmer.
Hogan had made his way out to the road, flagged down the first truck he saw and found out where the note’s author lived. He headed to the man’s house, introduced himself and was eventually invited to stay for dinner. Hogan’s new friend gave him a ride back to the campsite, where the group still has rights to camp.
“That’s just the way Rob was,†Basnight said.
Hogan also liked to spend hours hiking alone around Jordan Lake and in natural areas in Orange County, searching for clues about the original inhabitants of this area. He collected “buckets and buckets and buckets†of arrowheads, pottery shards and other items that he found on his solo hikes, Basnight said.
And while he was a hunter, everything he shot and killed he ate, Basnight said. Hunting was more about being outside than sport for Hogan.
“He was a conservationist in the best sense of the word,†Ayers said.
On the farm
Hogan brought his love for the outdoors to his work, though he wouldn’t have called it that.
“Rob’s family and our grandparents didn’t say [work],†Basnight said. “It was a lifestyle.â€
Hogan worked on the family farm as a boy and studied agriculture at N.C. State before taking over the farm.
“He did it all day, every day. It was just the way he lived,†Basnight said.
In the mid 1990s, the Hogan family was forced to sell off much of their farmland for development — what stands today as Lake Hogan Farms.
“Rob was really struggling to find his path in life,†Basnight said, when he started to look at the history of the Hogan family farm. What Hogan found was that the farm had not been any one particular kind of farm over its 240 years.
“Our farm had been bigger, it had been smaller, it had be subsistence, it had been farming,†Basnight said.
So Hogan began growing horse food and straw for landscaping, then expanded to the firewood and wheat business. Eventually, he realized how many of his customers were buying feed for beef cattle, and decided to get into the grass-fed beef business, becoming the first such farmer in Orange County.
Hogan had the extraordinary ability to see something small that had the potential to grow bigger, Basnight said, whether it was a business decision or a friendship.
Family
Family was important. The Orange United Methodist Church, the Homestead Community Center, Hogan Lake and the homes of family members all served as gathering places for Hogan and his family. At Thanksgiving and Easter, hosts can always count on about 75 Hogan family members to show up, Basnight said.
Growing up, Basnight said, he and Hogan were surrounded by family.
“It was great. I didn’t know it at the time,†Basnight said. “It was just what was.â€
Hogan met Ann Leonard, his wife of 21 years, when she came to buy firewood from him.
“He was not afraid of a strong, intelligent, well-educated woman, and sought ‘em out,†Basnight said.
Leonard, with her cosmopolitan lifestyle and “Yankee roots,†was an unlikely match for Hogan, Basnight said, but “both of them had that perspective and vision.â€
They “had the most perfect marriage,†Ayers said.
Hogan leaves behind his wife; three sons, Daniel, 26, James, 16, and Henry, 13; and countless other relatives and friends from all over the world.
Throughout Hogan’s stay in the hospital, the family posted updates on his condition to a website, caringbridge.org/visit/robandannhogan/journal, which received more than 80,000 hits.