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Obituaries
Hubert Dwane "Hoot" Hester
Date of Death or Service Sep 3, 2016
Hubert Dwane
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    Funeral services will be conducted Saturday morning, September 3, 2016 at 11:00 a.m. from the First Baptist Church of Dickson,TN. Dr. Mike Miller will officiate and Dr. Rebecca Hester McBride and Rachael Hester Kingery giving personal eulogies about their dad.  Visitation will be at the First Baptist Church on Friday, September  2nd beginning at 1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. and on Saturday beginning at 9:00 a.m. until time of service.  Place of rest will be in the Dickson Union Cemetery.
   Those desiring, memorials may be made to Alive Hospice or to the American Federation Musicians Relief Fund.
   Hubert “Hoot” Hester, much-loved Nashville fiddle player, age 65,  died at the Alive Hospice Skyline Madison Campus August 30, 2016.
   Hoot Hester played fiddle, guitar, and mandolin in Nashville for 43 years.  He came to Nashville from Louisville, Kentucky playing with Bluegrass Alliance, the Whites, and with Ben Smathers and the Stony Mountain Cloggers.  He travelled the road with Donna Fargo, Mel Tillis, and Jerry Reid before he and his wife, Lola, started having children.  
   After coming off the road to spend more time with his family, he played fiddle on Pop Goes the Country, Dancin USA, That Nashville Music, and Nashville Alive.  In the early 80s, when Nashville Now cast a house band, he was hired as the fiddle player and utility musician.  His kids grew up with him playing nightly on Nashville Now.  The whole family remembers those years as some of the best years of his music career.  
   After Nashville Now went off the air, Hoot played sessions, went on the road with Steve Wariner, and founded The Time Jumpers.  In the early 2000s, he was hired as a fiddle player and utility musician in the house band of the Grand Ole Opry where he played for more than a decade.  “Hoot Hester, let’s hear that fiddle,” became a commonplace saying in those years.  In the last several years, he has played primarily with his daughter’s band, Rachael Hester and the Tennessee Walkers. 
   His music friends remember him fondly as an encouraging mentor who always went out of his way to encourage young players who were trying to break into the music business.  He always made everyone else feel like they were the most honored person in the room.    
   His wife will remember him as somebody who took pride in providing for his family; the person she shared her entire life with. She will miss hearing his constant whistling in the background whenever he was in the room, especially because it was always the fiddle parts of songs he was whistling.  His whole family will remember that they couldn’t watch TV without Hoot playing guitar or fiddle in the background.  The years he learned to play the banjo were especially difficult television-watching years.  
   His children remember him as a goofy and encouraging father who taught them the value of hard work and lived out the example of pursuing dreams.  He was a good storyteller who loved to make people laugh with his “Hootisms.”  It will be hard to encounter just about any situation in life without a “As dad would say…”
   His grandchildren will always remember him as the grandpa who loved to “mess with them,” taught them to love music, drove a big truck, and always got sick on Disneyworld rides.  Even though his time with them was short, they will grow up to be better people because of the time they had with him.
   He is survived by Lola, his wife of 39 years, and his three children and their families.  Becca and Adam McBride, and their kids Keegan (11) and McKenna (8), live in Grand Rapids, MI.  Rachael and Andrew Kingery, and their daughter Rosie (3 months), live in Madison, TN.  Jonathan Hester lives in Denver, CO.  Also surviving are three sisters, Donna, Betty and Myrna. Several nieces and nephews.
 
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