Man surprised about his longevity

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September 3, 2010

Lee Ward The Independent The Daily Independent Fri Sep 03, 2010, 12:42 AM EDT

ASHLAND — Garrett Hignite has spent half of his long life being surprised.

“I never thought I’d live past 40 or 50,” he said. “I never dreamed I’d live this long.”

The Ashland man will celebrate his 102nd birthday today, surrounded by friends and family and eating birthday cake.

Hignite was born on a farm in Carter County, where he grew up with six brothers and three sisters.

“We raised a lot of corn and some tobacco,” he recalled. “We didn’t own the land; we rented it so we grew whatever the master wanted.”

In addition to farming, his father, Frank Hignite, was the first barber in Ashland.

“He worked for another guy and he moved around to different places in Ashland,” Hignite said, adding he never helped work in the shop, but he helped on the farm. In fact, he said he loved farming and continued raising a garden until he was 91.

He married in 1941 and he and his wife, Dorothy, who died in August 2009, moved to Portsmouth where he worked in a brickyard until he went into the Army Air Force and served during World War II. The Army Air Force was the military aviation arm of the United States during the war and shortly thereafter.

“I had a good time in the Army,” Hignite said. He served part of his time as a cook. Much of his time was spent in Germany, which he liked.

“I liked the German people,” he said. “They were more like us than the French were.”

He and five of his brothers were in the Army Air Force during the time he served.

After the war, Hignite worked for the state’s road construction department for several years; three of those years were spent helping to build the road to Carter Caves. “I got $1 an hour,” he said. Eventually, he worked at AK Steel, retiring when he was 65.

Hignite has two daughters, Ava Miller and Ruth Phelps, and a son, Gretchel Hignite; nine grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.

He is a member of Westwood Church of God.

Hignite said he didn’t know any advice to pass along to others hoping to live to be 102, but his daughters have some observations.

“He always stayed active,” Miller said. “He always ate three square meals a day and rarely ate anything in between.”

Phelps said he’s always been physically fit from his job flipping sheets at AK Steel. “He had arms like Popeye,” she said. “He could do one-armed pushups when he was 91.”

The daughters agreed he and their mother both worked hard and provided well for the family and rarely went into debt for purchases.

Hignite said he’s pleased with how life treated him.

“I’ve had a good life,” he said. “I never had any money, but I’ve had a good life.”

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.

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