Hugh began acting in public in the third grade. When he was 8 years old, he told his father that he wanted to go to Hollywood and be an actor, but his father discouraged it. He graduated Lee Senior High School and Central Carolina Community College, earning his Associate Degree in Communication. He also served in the US Air Force as a military policeman. Until 1995, his acting venues had been limited to stage, with leads in such productions as "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" (Marcus Lycus), "South Pacific" (Luther Billis), and "Night Must Fall" (Inspector Belsize). In 1995 he began a recurring role on a local television kid's show. In 1997 he got the male lead in the VisualQuest production of a prospective television pilot entitled "Letters From The Shoebox". However, the project never got off the ground. Hugh continued his stage performances with "Driving Miss Daisy" (Hoke), "The Wizard of Oz" (Professor Marvel/Oz) and "To Kill A Mockingbird" (Reverend Sykes)- the former of which he won the local civic theater's version of the Oscar. In 2001, he had a major supporting role in the Dave Christiano film, Late One Night (2001). This union with Christiano won him the role of Jon Gates, a principal character on the light Christian drama 7th Street Theater (2007), which aired on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), as well as the NRB Network, Cornerstone Television and I-Life. In 2006, he had a guest role on the Christian sitcom, Pastor Greg (2005) and in 2008, showed up in two major films with religious themes; Me & You, Us, Forever (2008) (Paul) released by Five & Two Pictures, and the modern version of the John Bunyan classic Pilgrim's Progress (2008) (Evangelist), produced by DRC Productions and directed by Danny Carrales ("Final Exit" "The Gathering" "Escape From Hell").