By Dennis Seid

Daily Journal

MANTACHIE – Bobbie Lou Hill wasn’t quite sure what the commotion was all about as she saw several vehicles pull up near her home Friday afternoon.

When she saw her family, she knew something was happening and that it involved her.

“I thought somebody was fixing to make a movie or something,” she said. Instead, it was state Sen. Chad McMahan joining Reed’s Metals and her family in giving her a big surprise – a $10,000 metal roof.

Hill, who retired in 2006 after working in the cafeteria at Mantachie High School for 29 years, raised three children in the house. It needed a new roof, which, weather permitting, will be installed next Friday.

“This is about the third roof for this old house,” Hill said. “The last one put on wasn’t done right and it leaks around the windows. … I just never could get ahead. I paid my bills, that’s for sure, but I just couldn’t pay for another roof.

“I’m just so blessed,” she said, trying to hold back tears.

Her birthday is Dec. 23, so it’s an early birthday and early Christmas present, she said with a smile.

It’s the second year Reed’s Metals of Tupelo has donated a metal roof in its “Covering the Community” project.

“We’ve been really blessed by the community and we wanted to give back to it,” said Daniel Bulter, co-owner and partner of Reed’s Metals of Tupelo. “It’s what we do, it’s what we do best. We did four roofs company wide last year and this year we’ll do six. We’ve been blessed and we want to be a blessing. We were really touched by her story.”

Reed’s has 10 locations across the state, and Reed’s Metals of Tupelo has been in business for the past seven.

Hill was among more than 100 nominations voted on by the Reed’s team. And she was nominated by four different people.

Among them was her daughter-in-law, Pam Hill, who described Bobbie Lou as the most kind-hearted, deserving person she knows.

“She’s always there to help everybody. She worked at the lunchroom for 20-something years and fed many a kid inside and outside the school and used her own money,” she said. “She’s always the first person to show up and the last person to leave, and she bakes biscuits and makes her rounds in the morning visiting the elderly.”

Pam said others have taken advantage of her mother-in-law in the past, particularly with the roof, and said she was truly deserving of a new one.

“I’ve always tried to give, and I try my best to tithe, and believe God is taking care of me,” Bobbie Lou Hill said. “He’s a good God.”