Celebrating Our People: Hobie Humphrey - Imaging Department

The way Hobert “Hobie” Humphrey explains Saint Joseph’s values is both vivid and succinct: “It’s treating everybody like your grandma,” he said. “It’s not that hard. You’ve got to take the time to listen to people. You can’t just be in a rush to get your job done. It’s easy to be kind.”

Hobie, the assistant lead in Flaget Memorial Hospital’s Imaging Department, helps juggle the department’s functions, handling paperwork, scheduling and all types of coordination. He wears many hats, he said, “but I just do what I can to make it better. … I’ve got the best team that I work with. It’s like a very small family with all the dysfunction and all the joy.”

Making it better is one factor in Hobie being named Flaget’s 2024 Employee of the Year. He started working there seven years ago as a pharmacy tech, then moved to his current position five years ago. Besides his job duties, he chairs the hospital’s Spirit Team.

Hobie said the work in the imaging department “is a different adventure every day. I never do the same thing.” It also gives him more opportunities to interact with patients and sometimes smooth their way. “It’s nice to be able to help people, especially when they’re at the end of their rope and asking, ‘I’ve called this place and that place’ and (I say) ‘Hold on, let me try, let me see what I can do to make this better,’” he said. “There’s lots of stuff that doesn’t fall under our, quote, activity, or what we’re supposed to be doing. But it’s really easy to do the right thing and help somebody out.”

Hobie said Saint Joseph’s values and the ministry’s humankindness byword coincide with a concept his Episcopal Church in Bardstown has promoted: “radical hospitality.” A pianist and a harpist, he has played the pipe organ at his church for 20 years, after a group of what he fondly calls “church ladies” taught him to play. Active in his church’s community activities, he also cooks for a program that enables people without housing to stay in churches for shelter.

The Spirit Team he leads is also active in reaching out to the community, and building up one another. “It’s a way to make work a little more fun, and show our coworkers that they are valued and appreciated while also giving back to the community,” Hobie said. They host a bake sale to raise funds for suicide awareness resources, a trunk or treat at Halloween, a food drive for local food pantries and fun activities and cookouts for staff. The team’s float entry for Flaget was even a winner in its category in the Bardstown Christmas Parade last year. 

Hobie’s youth was challenging; he said he left his “dysfunctional” family home at 15, entering kinship care with a relative who later moved away when he was 19, while he remained in Bardstown. His pre-Saint Joseph history includes being a night auditor and front desk clerk at a Hilton Hotel and working in retail. Working closely with people has been a throughline in his life to the present.

“I need people to survive, for a sense of community,” he explained. The desire to be part of an interactive team stems all the way back to his youth, when he was a Boy Scout and a cheerleader, and in marching band. “I’m just used to being around people.”

Hobie lives in Bardstown with his partner of six years and their elderly rescue dog.

He said he appreciates being able to work in a more rural area. 

“There’s accountability that’s kind of forced upon you to be the best you can be when you’re dealing with people” he said. “That accountability translates over into your community: These are people that you know and care about—you’re going to want to treat them the best. And I think in big cities, that gets lost, because you could just easily be a number.

“When I get to take care of somebody I know, it’s really rewarding. To know that you’re making a difference—even if it’s just a little bit.”