Friends indeed: Beeghly family to be honored tonight

The Beeghly family made great business contributions to the Mahoning Valley.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — The Beeghly family, longtime business leaders whose philanthropy has touched the region’s educational, religious and health-care institutions, will be presented Youngstown State University’s Friends of the University Award at a dinner tonight in the Chestnut Room at Kilcawley Center.

Initiated in 1997, the annual award recognizes alumni, friends and donors who have had a significant impact on YSU.

Two YSU buildings — Beeghly Hall, home of the Beeghly College of Education, and the Beeghly Health and Physical Education Center — are among nine college buildings around the country that bear the Beeghly name.

Westminster College, Mount Union College, Ohio Wesleyan University and American University in Washington, D.C., are other higher-learning institutions that have named campus buildings in the family’s honor.

Bruce Beeghly, president of Altronic Inc. in Girard, now serves on the Ohio Board of Regents. He is a former member and chairman of the Liberty Board of Education and the YSU trustees board. In 2005, he received an honorary doctor of science degree during YSU’s commencement.

Beeghly’s father, R. Thornton Beeghly, who died last October at age 96, also received an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters from YSU in 1983, along with the YSU Alumni Association’s Distinguished Citizen Award.

Earlier this year, the Beeghly family sold Altronic to Hoerbiger Holding AG of Switzerland. Bruce Beeghly is retaining his lead role in the former longtime family business, a designer and producer of ignition systems and other equipment for use by the oil and gas industry.

Other Mahoning Valley companies in which the family had major interests include the Standard Slag Co., Cold Metal Products Co., Metal Carbides Corp. and Bessemer Limestone & Cement.

The Beeghly family’s history in the region began with Leon A. Beeghly, Bruce Beeghly’s grandfather, who moved from Toledo to Youngstown in 1918 with his wife, the former Mabel Snyder, and their children.

L.A. Beeghly started the Standard Slag Co. in 1914 with partners W.E. Bliss and W.H. Kilcawley, using blast furnace slag, a waste product of the Mahoning Valley’s steel industry, as a basic construction material for highways, buildings and other infrastructure purposes.

The company grew to have operations across the country and diversified to add production of brick, concrete and cement and the mining of sand, gravel, minerals and ores.

In 1940, the family established the L.A. Beeghly Fund, and the work was continued by his sons, making contributions to more than 140 organizations over a half-century.