Remembering longtime outdoors enthusiast Bobby Cleveland

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Friends, family, and longtime readers are remembering outdoors enthusiast Bobby Cleveland.

Cleveland died after a traffic accident on Thursday afternoon.

”Hello, this is Bobby Cleveland. I’m outdoors in Mississippi, where I’ve been for 30 years.”

He didn’t need any more introduction that that when Cleveland started doing outdoors segments for WLBT back in 2012. He’d already had a long career as an outdoors writer for The Clarion-Ledger.

That’s where editorial cartoonist Marshall Ramsey got to know him.

“Bobby was absolutely the funniest person you will ever meet and was one of the best storytellers you’ll ever meet,” Ramsey recalled. ”In the South, we have a long tradition of only saying nice things about people when they die. But if you read nice things about Bobby Cleveland, every word of it is true.”

Cleveland used his weekly segments to share his passion for the outdoors with others, through television -- always laid-back, always right at home on the water or in the woods.

Ramsey said, “My heart is breaking for Pam, his wife; and for Rick, his brother; and Liz and Tyler and Annie, because the whole Cleveland family was just so incredibly close, and Bobby was a big part of it.”

”It’s really kind of a scary time,” he added. “You watch the news and you just feel like the world needs more Bobby Clevelands, they don’t need one less.”

Ramsey also paid tribute to his friend with a cartoon on Mississippi Today’s website. The caption reads Bobby Cleveland arrives in heaven.

He’s riding a boat, welcomed by angels. Bobby Cleveland was 67-years-old

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