By Samantha Sinclair
White County News
Sautee Nacoochee, Ga. – Ronald Hill Sr., a U.S. Army veteran and community leader, passed away Dec. 17, a day after his final gift to the county was dedicated.
Hill was 89 years old. He had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
Many of the statues honoring heroes in White County had Hill as the driving force behind them, including the White County Veterans Memorial in Freedom Park, the life-size statue of Private Rondall H. Glaze in Helen Veterans Park, and the new Families of the Fallen Monument in Freedom Park.
His daughter shared on Dec. 16 that Hill did get to visit the park prior to the ceremony and see the bronze statue of the soldier kneeling and presenting a folded American flag that he designed and worked hard to bring to the county in his final months.
Longtime Helen city commissioners Jeff Ash and Fred Garmon recalled working with Hill to bring the Glaze statue to Helen.
“Ron Hill was a driving force behind the creation of our veterans park,” Ash said.
Garmon said the city had already started working on the park when Hill and Ron Webb approached the city about the statue.
“I told him we’d be very interested,” Garmon said. “It was a great addition to our park.”
Ash and Garmon recalled how well everyone worked together on the project.
“To me, it was a pleasure working with him,” Garmon said. “I think he’s a very good advocate of the VFW.”
Ash was impressed with Hill’s personality and drive.
“He was a mover and a shaker,” Ash said.
Hill served the Army in three wars – Korea, Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm – and had a military career spanning 21 years. Outside of his military service he served the communities he lived in and the people, especially veterans, through his employment and volunteer work.
He became good friends with Webb, who said he would be sorely missed by the Northeast Georgia Veterans Society and White County.
“He was such a public service-minded individual,” Webb said. “He was the most patriotic, generous, righteous, religious man I’ve known. To have all those qualities in one man made him an exceptional human being.”
Hill was a founding member of the Northeast Georgia Veterans Society when it formed in 2014. The society honored Hill as its Veteran of the Year in 2021.
When Tony McIntyre moved to Cleveland, the first organization he joined was the Northeast Georgia Veterans Society, where he met Hill.
“It did not take long to see how much he did behind the scenes to make that organization as productive as it was,” McIntyre said.
McIntyre saw that he wrote the programs for monthly meetings and special veterans events, created certificates of recognition for vets for their involvement in the organization, created medallions, made monuments of tribute to fallen service men and their families, and found other ways to enhance the unit and those involved in it.
He saw that Hill was paying for materials out of pocket.
“For whatever reason, every time I saw him at meetings and observed him, he had what I call an ‘angelic’ quality about him,” McIntyre said. “He always seemed to be at peace with himself in a world that seems to be spinning out of control.”
He added that Hill epitomized the word “great.”
“For those that knew him, I’m sure that they consider themselves lucky to have known that greatness had a face, a body, an angelic quality that time will never erase. Truly, he was a ‘great American,’ if anyone ever deserved that ultimate compliment.”
Hill is survived by his wife of 68 years, Shirley; his daughter, Rebecca; and his two sons, Ronald Jr. and William; as well as grandchildren and other family members.