Richard Benadum follows his father’s path in Rotary
LANCASTER – In a world of uncertainties, one thing is almost certain: Richard Benadum will be at the weekly Lancaster Rotary meeting Monday.
Benadum hasn’t missed a meeting in 51 years. His late father, Earl, didn’t miss a meeting from 1937 until his death in 1985, meaning the father and son have amassed almost 100 years of perfect attendance.
“Dad lived Rotary,” Detroit native Richard Benadum said. “It’s been inbred for a long time. In the amount of years from 1937 to 1960, when I joined, it was inbred. Dad was doing this. Dad went to Rotary. It was kind of a no-brainer for me to join.”
Richard Benadum and his family own North End Press, the company Earl Benadum started in 1931 in Detroit. The company moved to Lancaster in 1933 and Richard Benadum started working there in 1941.
He said his father would take a suit to work with him and change into it before the weekly Rotary meetings.
“Now I never did that,” said Benadum, 85. “I told him that I would dress up informally, but I’m not going to carry a suit down there all the time. But now the dress code is all together different than it used to be. The people were always dressed up.”
The pair went to meetings together for about 25 years until the elder Benadum’s death.
Richard Benadum would have had 54 years of perfect attendance, but he missed a meeting with the mumps in his third year of being a Rotarian. He served as the club’s secretary for almost 20 years, but said he never wanted to be president. He said he earned his perfect attendance streak because he likes the fellowship the club provides, along with the people he meets and the speakers he hears.
“The thing about it is, it broadens your horizons,” Benadum said. “You hear speakers come in and talk about things you wouldn’t even think about.”
He said a missed meeting can be made up two weeks before or two weeks afterward at any of the 13,000 Rotary clubs in the world to keep an attendance streak going.
Benadum also is a member of the Lancaster Men’s Chorus and the Masonic Lodge.
He said his father’s influence helped him string so many years of perfect attendance together.
“Dad was the same as I,” Richard Benadum said. “Dedication to your vocation, but also your avocation. And so, therefore, I enjoyed going to Rotary with him. It meant a lot to be a tag-along with Dad because there were not a whole lot of fathers and sons. Maybe I had some prestige because I went to Rotary with my father.”
Benadum is not the only Rotarian with an impressive attendance record, however. He said Bob Buchanan has 62 straight years and Jack Kelley had not missed a meeting in 52 years before finally missing one.
Benadum does not plan on leaving Rotary or the business he works from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. five days a week.
“Well, I tell you,” he said. “Dad passed away on a Thursday when he was 94 years old. And the previous Friday, he got his last pay check. Now does that tell you? I just enjoy the print industry as an industry for what it does, the way it communicates with the world. I enjoy the mechanics of it, the things you can do with your hands.”
jbarron@lancastereaglegazette.com
740-681-4340
Twitter: @JeffDBarron