I was in the lobby of the Georgia Mountain Center in Gainesville, GA, the night of Friday, December 28, 2001. Just a few days before, we had finally put to bed the February 2002 issue of Singing News and sent it off to the printer. I say "finally" because we had problem after problem with that issue (all of a technical nature) and on more than one occasion, we were beginning to think we'd never get that thing done.

As I was standing behind the table that night in Gainesville, my cell phone rang. It was Jerry Kirksey. He told me that he was "about to rip up the February issue and start over. Hovie died tonight."

After a long battle with cancer, Hovie had passed away at the age of 75.

While I knew Hovie, I missed the frenzy of the Statesmen's biggest years. In fact, I wasn't even born yet. But I had the opportunity to talk with Hovie a lot during the 1990s and I found out that if you wanted to learn anything about the Statesmen, you had to work hard to draw it out of him. What he wanted to talk about the most were things that most people would not get excited about.

As many of you know, Hovie was very well-connected, politically speaking, in the state of Georgia. And he used that political clout not for personal gain, but for something far-more important. Hovie, almost single-handedly, built a prison ministry through the Georgia prisons.

He pushed for more chaplains in every facility, he worked to raise funds to help those prison ministers gain the materials they needed to be effective. He helped to build and stock a Christian library in every Georgia state prison and at the time of his passing, he was working on building Christian libraries in the state's parole offices.

Hovie didn't do all of this by sitting at a desk, even though for a time he was the Director Of Ministry for the state's Pardons & Parole Board. He went straight to the front lines himself. For example, he and the Statesmen preached and sang in EVERY prison in the state. He prayed with the prisoners, he ministered to them and he had genuine concern for their souls. And, there's no way possible to measure the amount of money he donated to the cause from his own pocket.

The day the Southern Gospel Music Association displayed the "Handing Down The Heritage" painting for the first time, Hovie Lister was proud. He was honored that he had been selected as the subject for the painting and still today, that painting is a treasured work that is found in the homes of many Southern Gospel Music people.

There was a big reception for Hovie that day and he enjoyed all the festivities. But after it was over, I ran into Hovie. Literally.

He was on the phone, talking with someone about getting more Bibles delivered to a prison in south Georgia.

Kinda puts it all into perspective, doesn't it?