Friends of Bubba Comans remembered him as a good deputy who was stern and followed the law, but was always ready to help someone in need.

Comans died Monday. Arrangements are incomplete at Glenwood Funeral Home.

“Bubba was a well liked and well respected law enforcement officer in this community for over 25 years,” Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said. “He was well liked by all members of the sheriff’s office as well as the community.”

Comans, he said, was a deputy for more than 25 years, retiring about two years ago. In 2011, Comans ran for sheriff against Pace, but the sheriff said they remained good friends after the election.

“Even after he ran, he would come up to the office and visit,” he said. “He was always diligent in performing his duties, but never passed up the opportunity to help somebody.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family,” Pace said.

Robert Bell, who was hired with Comans by former Warren County Sheriff Paul Barnett, said Comans “was a friend, first of all; a good friend. Neither he nor I was afraid of any call we got, whether it was a fight, shooting or whatever, because we always had each other’s back.”

Bell said he and Comans worked the night shift for the sheriff’s office for four years before Barrett pulled them off the shift.

“We worked when there were only two cars, one north and one south,” he said. “If he got hungry at night, he’d call his mom, and his mom would make some tomato gravy and cathead biscuits, and when she got it ready, we’d run by and eat and we’d be talking back and forth, she was a nice lady.”

He said he and Comans treated people they way they wanted to be treated.

“We went to work early,” he said. “We liked our jobs. We didn’t make a mint, but we liked our jobs and we did it very well.”

Bell said his daughter, as a teenager, called Comans “Uncle Bubba,” and Comans’ niece was the same with him.

“We used to talk about growing up,” he said. “He grew up hard, just like me. He hauled pulpwood, I hauled pulpwood, he chopped cotton, I chopped cotton. We appreciated everything we had, and if we wanted something (we knew) we had to work for it.”

He said he and Comans “hit it off; we just hit it off.”

“It was an honor to serve with that man,” said James Carter, who was a Warren County deputy from 1989 to 2006. “I partnered with him for eight years. He was a mentor, a brother and a part of my family for many years. He could walk into a bar where there was a fight and people would listen to him.”

He said Comans was well known in the community, and was always willing to help someone out with a problem.

“He got more phone calls than the sheriff did,” he said. “The man never slept. We’d go out to eat and he’d get a phone call and we’d leave our meal to go help somebody. One time there was a family without any food, and he went to a store and bought them food. He’d give someone his last dollar.”

“It was a sad day when he retired and a sad day when he was gone to God,” he said. “He must have been an angel, because of all the things he did behind the scenes to help people.”