We have all heard of someone who spent a little more time on a college campus than one would think was reasonable. In this week's Only in Indiana, we found a Muncie native who spent the last 50 years on the campus at Ball State.
A lot of things can change over the years, especially on a college campus. The years come and go and so do the students.
"I tried to time it so I could get one last haircut in before you were done," Keith Shook, a longtime customer, said.
Shook graduated from Ball State, but something kept him coming back. It wasn't the campus, students or the professors. It was Benny.
"I think I first started coming here when I was a student and I started at Ball State in '99 so it would be like 17 years," Shook added.
Benny the barber.
Does that happen a lot, we asked?
"Quite often. Especially if they work around here," Benny Benefiel answered.
Andy Bonnell, who teaches Greek and Latin at Ball State, is another longtime customer.
"Been coming here for 30 years now," Bonnell tabulated.
He was a kid when he started coming here, we observed.
"Yes, he sure was," Benny remarked.
"Do you remember him?" we asked.
"I sure do," Benny answered. "He was a typical Burris kid," Benny said to loud laughter.
He likes to fish and he likes his customers. Fishing finally won out, so after 50 years of cutting hair at Ball State Benny Benefiel, Benny the Barber now at 72 was going through his own personal graduation to what the rest of us might call retirement.
"We need a monument of like Rocky. Only of Benny," two women exclaimed as they stuck their heads in the front door of the barbershop.
"Somebody had said I was going to be here 10 years I would have told them they were crazy. Let alone 50. That's alright it has been a good place for me," he concluded.
"We all started here together, didn't we?" one woman continued.
"Just about," Benny agreed. "I remember when I first started here the only thing here in the basement was Benny's barbershop. That's it," she concluded and then the two said their goodbyes and walked away.
"Other than me is Red Skelton the most popular person you have given a haircut to?" a customer asked Benny while he was sitting in the barber chair.
"No question. No question about that one," Benny said pointing toward the picture of the comedian sitting in the same chair that is hanging on his wall.
"They are all important, aren't they," the customer continued.
"They sure are," Benny noted. "I guess that is one thing I like about coming here. You make each person feel like they are important," the customer said.
That is why they always came back - and that is why they also brought their children back.
"Where else can you get a cut like this and a straight razor is probably my favorite part of the haircut. That warm shaving cream and the razor blade. And of course, the conversation with Benny," Todd Phelps, another customer, said.
"He knows the razor is coming so he can't say anything but good things," Benny rationalized.
The well wishes are piling up but the memories are piled up much higher.
"Honestly I have been in denial that he is leaving and retiring. I still have yet to figure out what I am going to do when he is gone," Phelps continued.
"It is a long time and a short time. I can't believe 50 years has gone by already! Benny observed.
"We are going to miss him. He is like family," Phelps concluded.
He is like family. Part of the Ball State family.
Benny started cutting hair at Ball State in July of 1965. His last day was last Friday June 24, 2016.
