Hoeffler was well known in Lebanon, having lived for more than 20 years and raised three children there.
Hoeffler was retired from the Ohio Department of Transportation and coached local sports teams in Lebanon.
“He’s going to be missed dearly. There were a lot of unfinished things here. It was not his time. Our family is broken and very confused at the moment,” his son Corey Hoeffler said Thursday.
A moment of silence for him was observed Tuesday before the Lebanon City Council meeting.
Hoeffler was returning from a delivery for a local machine shop when he was killed.
He was caught between tractor-trailers when one of them failed to slow for traffic stopped due to construction on the Jeremiah Morrow Bridge, according to the Ohio Highway Patrol.
The crash stalled traffic on I-71 for about eight hours and backed up traffic rerouted around the crash all the way back to Lebanon. No further information on the crash was available Thursday.
Born in Cincinnati and raised in Reading, a Cincinnati suburb, Hoeffler married Jennifer Hoeffler about 23 years ago and they moved to Lebanon.
Hoeffler adopted her two sons, Corey and Chad, who both still live in Lebanon. They also have a daughter, Cassie, who lives in Lebanon.
“I could not have picked a better man to step in and taken care of my boys,” Jennifer Hoeffler said. “He was the best father.”
He is also survived by his father, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.
A memorial service is scheduled on Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m., with the funeral directly afterward, at Stine-Kilburn Funeral Home, 801 Monroe Road in Lebanon. Burial is Monday at Rosehill Cemetery in Mason.
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