Robert Edward Longino

Robert Edward Longino, III was born January 3, 1948 in Biloxi but he spent his first, formative years on the family farm near Silver Creek, MS where his life-long love of nature and the outdoors began. A later boyhood living near Biloxi’s beaches and Bay completed the spell. And after time at MS State and service in the Navy, Ed happily began work with the State Forestry Commission in Harrison County. He faced with equal calm the beauty and the fury in nature as he planted new trees and fought roaring flame and smoke among those trees. He settled on his great-grandfather's land in Woolmarket where he and his brothers hand-built, first his house, and then his brothers’ and sister’s homes there. After retirement, he continued fighting fires out in the Western mountains with the state wildfire team, coaxing the soil to produce his own gardens, kayaking the bays and marshes of the Coast, and volunteering as a long-time member of the Gulf Coast Running Club. Ed outlived his parents and his sister, Susan Currie Cooper, but was very close to all his family particularly his surviving brothers and sisters: Dan, Charline Julia, Lewis (Denise), and Nancy Longino; Este Stifel; and Ken Collins. He was also very proud of his nieces and nephews: Edward Currie, III, Caroline Currie (JT) Pegues, Lewis Alan Longino, Lauren Longino, and Elisabeth Cooper; and his great-niece and nephew: Baylee Baker and Logan Shivers. After his first diagnosis, Ed stated that all he wanted was to go back to living at his home and tending to his plants, and that was what he did. He went thru treatment after treatment stoically, and continued to enjoy his home, and his plants, and his fish, and the many turtles and birds who came to his feeders; an enjoyment that lasted long past the most optimistic predictions of his doctors. When he stopped being able to enjoy the outdoors, it was as if he decided it was time, and he left us. The family invites friends and loved ones to celebrate his life with us at his home in an open house, Sunday, April 8, 2018 from 2 to 4 p.m. The Howard Avenue Chapel of Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home assisted the family with arrangements. View and sign register book online at www.bradfordokeefe.com