The most famous man in Hallsville starts each morning at Buchanan’s Hardware and Feed with a Coke Zero and crackers to keep him company.

Jimmy Hunt is 90 years old, and while never an outsized personality, he’s grown increasingly reserved in his old age. The longer he lives, the more time takes away from him. His hearing is shot. He doesn’t drive anymore, and he had to give up his herd of cattle about eight years ago.

But Hunt has a streak of attending every Hallsville football game since the 1958 season opener that he’ll never surrender. He’s been in the stands every Friday night since before John F. Kennedy was president. Before the Beatles released their first record. Before man landed on the moon.

Of course, there have been some close calls over the 66-year stretch. Hunt lowers his head and proudly points to four divots, two in the front and two in the back, on the top of his skull from the time doctors discovered water on his brain and had to place a shunt. Hunt scheduled the surgery for a Tuesday so he could make that Friday’s playoff game against Palestine and showed up for kickoff with gauze wrapped around his head.

“He came in right before the game started and everybody in the stands gave him a standing ovation,” said Mike Buchanan, owner of Buchanan’s Hardware and Feed.