R. Thornton Beeghly

R. Thornton Beeghly

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,” implies that the passing of any one man or woman diminishes us all. And who are we to argue with John Donne?

But there are those times when the tolling of a bell signals a loss of special importance to a community, because the person for whom the bell tolls reached out to touch more lives than most of us can imagine.

So it was recently when R. Thornton Beeghly died at the age of 96.

He was both an industrialist and a philanthropist, two vanishing breeds. The disappearance of industrialists can be attributed to a changing economic climate; their modern counterparts, to the extent they exist, are called entrepreneurs. The even more endangered species is the philanthropist and his first cousin, the community leader. Thornton Beeghly was both a giver and a leader, almost without peer.

There are buildings on college campuses near and far that attest to the philanthropy of Beeghly and his family. But the length and breadth of his commitment to community, of his willingness to be a leader when called upon, is found in family lore and dozens of entries in Vindicator files that cover well over half of Beeghly’s life.

Beyond the call of duty

He wasn’t just a member of the YMCA, he was chairman of the membership drive, co-chairman of the building fund and, eventually, president of the YMCA.

He didn’t just make a pledge to the Community Chest, he was co-chairman and chairman of various campaigns and vice president of the Community Corp.

He didn’t just buy Easter Seals, he took command of the local drive.

A half century ago, he headed the local campaign for the United Negro College Fund. For three decades he played various fund-raising roles for the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges. In 1983, Standard Oil Co. of Ohio announced a challenge grant: it would provide up to $40,000 for every dollar raised locally to provide emergency food and shelter services in the Mahoning Valley. At an age when most men simply enjoy retirement, Beeghly answered the call and headed the local drive.

A medical center that bears the family name sits on the site of the family homestead on Market Street, but Beeghly’s personal service to the Youngstown Hospital Association includes leadership roles on various fund drives and more than two decades of service on the hospital board, including a stint as president.

All of that community service (and that’s only a portion of it) was in addition to his successful business career, which included president of Standard Slag Co., CEO of Metal Carbides and service on the boards of banks and the Chamber of Commerce.

Vanishing generation

Thornton Beeghly was an exemplary example of an exemplary generation. Other men of that generation whose recent loss is also felt by the community are Fred Tod Jr. and Judge Clyde W. Osborne. They are men who excelled not only in their professions, but in service to the community.

To be sure there are men and women in the next generation, the baby boomers, who step up when called upon. But very few are willing or able to match the example set by their elders.

It is a changing age, an age in which there are other distractions, other demands on time and other priorities.

That combination of factors almost guarantees that as rare a person as Thornton Beeghly was throughout most of the 20th Century, his kind will be even more rare in the 21st.

We can celebrate his life of achievement, but are obliged to doubly mourn his passing.