PHOTO BY Liz Lance / MPW.59 PHOTO BY Liz Lance / MPW.59
  • Bob & Jim: Two for the Roads
  • By Liz Lance, Freelance
  • The 59th Missouri Photo Workshop / Chillicothe, Mo.
  • Bob Donoho and Jim Figg, both lifelong Chillicothe residents, make up the Livingston County Road and Bridge Department. Bob has been with the department for 23 years, and Jim for 22. Over the two-plus decades they have worked together, their friendship has taken on an ease akin to that of an old married couple, but without the fights, both point out. “They might hire somebody worse, so you better keep what you got,” Figg says.

    From their office off of Old Hwy. 36, and while they’re out in the county fixing bridges and culverts, they play host to a cast of friends and family, usually just to have a good visit. They eat lunch and run errands together, moving as a pair and each standing up for the other when friends give them grief. But their seniority as the longest serving county employees has earned them a lot of respect, and these men stand as pillars of their community.

    Bob Donoho, in the trackhoe on the left, and Jim Figg, in the backhoe on the right, fill the dirt in after replacing a culvert in northeast Chillicothe.

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