If Bobby Jonte is truly retiring from his weekly newspaper column, history suggests it won’t stick.
After all, this is a man who has tried to quit writing before, only to find stories waiting for him in parking lots, barbecues, chance conversations and the occasional obscure dictionary entry. Stories, much like airplanes, have a habit of pulling him back into the air.
Jonte, longtime columnist for The News in Kingstree and The Manning Times, is stepping away from his regular column — emphasis on regular. Even he admits it’s more of a pause than a farewell.
“Next year,” he said with a grin, “if I start sending them, maybe you’ll start printing them again.”
That sentence alone tells you everything you need to know.
A LIFE THAT REFUSES TO STAY IN ONE LANE
Jonte grew up in Greeleyville and still lives one house over from where he was raised. Somehow, between those two addresses, he built a life that includes banking executive, mayor pro tem, licensed auctioneer, lay Methodist speaker, Wright Brothers Master Pilot, author of 10 books — and, yes, graduate of clown school.
Not metaphorical clown school. An actual, four-day clown school at Georgia Southern University.
“That is true,” he said, deadpan.
His education includes Wofford College and graduate school, but Jonte has always been more interested in what else might be out there. That curiosity led him to crop dusting at 18, flying for the Forestry Commission, instructing more than 100 pilots over five decades, and eventually into banking in 1989, where he worked his way up from teller to CEO of the Bank of Greeleyville.
He’s still there — at least for now.
“They don’t work me very hard,” he said. “And my wife doesn’t want me to stay home and ask her what’s for supper.”
THE MIND OF A COLUMNIST
Jonte didn’t set out to become a columnist. Like many good things, it happened because someone asked.
Vicki Boyd, former editor at The News and fellow Rotarian, suggested he write “whatever comes into your head.” The first column came from a moment of self-reflection — realizing he had judged someone too quickly — and the habit stuck.
The Manning Times picked up his column around 2010. Since then, Jonte has written hundreds of pieces that wander comfortably through history, faith, philosophy, small-town characters, barbecue debates and life lessons that sneak up on readers right at the end.
He insists he’s never sat down thinking, “I don’t have a story this week.”
“If this is out there,” he said, repeating one of his favorite refrains, “just think what else could be out there.”
That mindset explains why a single word — pandiculation, the involuntary stretch and yawn when you wake up — can become a meditation on human curiosity.
“If that word exists,” he said, “what else don’t we know?”
SCRAPS OF PAPER AND PRACTICED IMPOROVISATION
Jonte writes the way he lives: with notes everywhere. Scraps of paper, margins, reminders written down not because he can’t remember, but because writing something down makes it real.
The habit grew out of years of speaking — Rotary meetings, Toastmasters, sermons — where he learned that the best “off-the-cuff” moments are usually practiced.
“You remember the joke because you wrote it down,” he said. “The punchline sounds ad-lib because you practiced.”
Columns work the same way. He starts with an opening, builds the body, and aims for a twist at the end — the moment that makes readers pause, laugh, or rethink something they thought they understood.
Ironically, the columns he thought were nothing special often drew the strongest response.
“You write something you think is just blabbing,” he said, “and everybody loves it.”
THE STORIES THAT STAY
One story has stayed with readers — and with Jonte himself — because it is his own family’s.
In 1965, Jonte’s father had the chance to attend the world’s great sports car races — Le Mans, Spa and Monaco. The trip would have taken a month and cost $2,000, a fortune at the time. Unsure what to do, he asked his father for advice.
His father told him that if he went, he would pay the way for his wife.
In the end, he didn’t go. It cost too much and took too long.
Jonte tells the rest without embellishment. His grandfather died in 1970. His mother died in 1980. By 1990, his father was too sick to travel.
When Jonte’s father died in 1991, Jonte was sitting in the bank on payday.
“The next morning,” he said, “we put $2,000 on his desk.”
The meaning was clear. The things you plan to do someday have a way of slipping past you if you wait too long.
“If you think it’s expensive,” Jonte said, “be careful — because you just let your life slip through your fingers like water.”
MOUNT HOPE SCROLLS
Jonte’s humor has always been part of his appeal. His Mount Hope Scrolls books — inspired by the Dead Sea Scrolls — claim the stories were excavated from a landfill near Mount Hope Swamp, or etched inside a coffin, depending on who you ask.
“All these stories are true,” he likes to say, “or could have been.”
It’s that wink to the reader — that invitation to enjoy the story without taking it too seriously — that defines his voice.
NOT GOODBYE - JUST ‘WE’LL SEE’
At 75, Jonte says he still has plenty of stories in his head. He’s finishing his 10th book, a flying autobiography, and casually notes that hundreds of columns could easily become several more books.
There’s even talk of a podcast.
“My son said, ‘Dad, you just talk — I’ll do the rest,’” Jonte said.
So yes, Bobby Jonte is retiring from his column.
Probably.
But if a story appears while he’s driving by, or a word catches his attention, or a barbecue debate gets heated enough, readers shouldn’t be surprised to see his byline again.
“Back by popular demand,” he suggested.
That sounds about right.
