
{"id":13137,"date":"2010-10-14T09:35:06","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T17:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=13137"},"modified":"2010-10-14T09:35:26","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T17:35:26","slug":"community-bids-farewell-to-rob-hogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/10\/14\/community-bids-farewell-to-rob-hogan\/","title":{"rendered":"Community bids farewell to Rob Hogan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nMore 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.  <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153There was an inclusiveness about Rob that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbout money, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbout race, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbout education,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Hogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cousin Don Basnight. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He moved easily between the communities. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He could sell a tree hugger firewood,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight explained. <\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>Complications developed, and while Hogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s condition had improved during his stay in the hospital, his health deteriorated rapidly last week.<\/p>\n<p>Hogan lived on Hogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mary Ayers, who grew up in Calvander and has known the Hogan family as long as she can remember.  \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was a genuine person. And he was so representative of his family.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p><strong>A lover of the land<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nMany of those who knew Hogan speak of his love of the outdoors when remembering him. <\/p>\n<p>Basnight and Hogan grew up spending a lot of time outdoors, boating, camping and hiking. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had a lot of fun times with Rob in the woods,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said. <\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had this beautiful peanut field that we had found on the Cashie River and we named it Bear Vista,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said. The group went off exploring for the day and returned to find a note on Hogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sleeping bag telling them that the land was private property and that they needed to leave. <\/p>\n<p>There wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a soul in sight, Basnight said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the other end of the field,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so the group had no idea who the note had come from. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I noticed Rob just took the note and walked out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Hogan was gone for a couple of hours before returning in the truck of a local farmer.  <\/p>\n<p>Hogan had made his way out to the road, flagged down the first truck he saw and found out where the note\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s author lived. He headed to the man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house, introduced himself and was eventually invited to stay for dinner. Hogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new friend gave him a ride back to the campsite, where the group still has rights to camp.  <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just the way Rob was,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said. <\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153buckets and buckets and buckets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of arrowheads, pottery shards and other items that he found on his solo hikes, Basnight said. <\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was a conservationist in the best sense of the word,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ayers said. <\/p>\n<p><strong>On the farm<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nHogan brought his love for the outdoors to his work, though he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have called it that. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rob\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s family and our grandparents didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say [work],\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a lifestyle.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Hogan worked on the family farm as a boy and studied agriculture at N.C. State before taking over the farm. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He did it all day, every day. It was just the way he lived,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said.  <\/p>\n<p>In the mid 1990s, the Hogan family was forced to sell off much of their farmland for development \u00e2\u20ac\u201d what stands today as Lake Hogan Farms.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rob was really struggling to find his path in life,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our farm had been bigger, it had been smaller, it had be subsistence, it had been farming,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said. <\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Family<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nFamily 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.<\/p>\n<p>Growing up, Basnight said, he and Hogan were surrounded by family. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was great. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know it at the time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was just what was.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Hogan met Ann Leonard, his wife of 21 years, when she came to buy firewood from him. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was not afraid of a strong, intelligent, well-educated woman, and sought \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Basnight said. <\/p>\n<p>Leonard, with her cosmopolitan lifestyle and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yankee roots,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was an unlikely match for Hogan, Basnight said, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153both of them had that perspective and vision.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>They \u00e2\u20ac\u0153had the most perfect marriage,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ayers said. <\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>Throughout Hogan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stay in the hospital, the family posted updates on his condition to a website, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.caringbridge.org\/visit\/robandannhogan\/journal\">caringbridge.org\/visit\/robandannhogan\/journal<\/a>, which received more than 80,000 hits. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_13138\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13138\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Rob-Hogan.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Rob-Hogan\" width=\"400\" height=\"265\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13138\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Rob-Hogan.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Rob-Hogan-113x74.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Rob-Hogan-150x99.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Rob-Hogan-360x238.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Rob-Hogan-120x80.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13138\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HOGAN FAMILY. Rob Hogan, 1956-2010.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13137"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13161,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13137\/revisions\/13161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}