Beloved Baldwin County Firefighter Dies

Photographs remind Jamie Hinton of his friend and just how much he is going to miss him.
"A little rough on the outside but sweetest, greatest person you ever want to meet."

Delbert Mauldin passed away this week after a long battle with cancer. "He had lung cancer," says Hinton who is fire chief in Magnolia Springs. "They had removed one lung and a part of another lung and the cancer had moved to his bones and that's where he lost his battle."
It was practically the only battle he ever lost and that's saying a lot for a man who survived two tours of duty in Vietnam and more than 20 years as a volunteer firefighter.

"For us, we've lost a friend and a fellow firefighter." Elsanor Chief Alan Paul says Del, as he was known to his family and friends, played a big part in getting the new fire station built. But it was his character that he will miss most of all. "He could walk into a room where people would be down and out it wouldn't take him but a minute to have 'em laughing and carrying on."

His funeral is scheduled for Thursday with full military and firefighter honors. His friends say he'd like that. "We're going to give him a grand send off Thursday and he's going to be looking down smiling," says Hinton.

Visitation for the assistant chief will be Wednesday night at the Elsanor Fire Station from 6 to 8. Mauldin is survived by his wife and daughter and three granddaughters.