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(Eift Aiiuancg The ADVANCE, August 25, 2021/Page 11A ♦ Benny McLendon By Andrea Towns Contributing Writer “I grew up in Lyons, Georgia, and I’ve been there my whole life. Same place, drank water from the same well,” Benny McLen don said. “My father fought in World War II. When he got out, he used his GI loan to buy one hundred acres of land and an old house just outside of Lyons. He and my mother lived there. A few years later, he built another house on the same land, and I grew up there. When I got mar ried in 1980,1 built a house just right up the way from home and still live there. So, I haven’t made it very far in life.” Geographi cally, Benny may not have moved far from where he started, but the influence of his life reaches far beyond Toombs County. He was born on June 26, 1956, and is the son of Ben Roy and Nel McLen don. He started school at Lyons city schools but graduated from Robert Toombs Christian Acade my in 1974. “I had no plans of going to college,” Benny said. “But one of my class mates, Lori Hartley [Col lins Crawley], demanded I go to Brewton-Parker. She came out to my house, picked me up, took me over to campus and made me sign up for classes.” He completed his first two years of college at Brewton- Parker. “Jack Mosely was a friend of mine from el ementary school. We were still buddies. He said, ‘You need to come and go to the University of Georgia with me.’ And so I did, and that was really big for me.” Benny earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business at UGA and graduated in 1978. His association with his high school alma mater has been lasting as he has “been involved with Robert Toombs for 50-something years.” This is also true for his college alma mater, as he and his family have shown up and cheered on the Georgia Bulldogs from Athens all the way to the FORTY YEARS OLD — The McLendon family celebrates McLendon Enterprises' fortieth anniversary, 1979 to 2019. DR. SUSAN MCLENDON — Susan McLendon graduated from Georgia Southwestern as a registered nurse and earned a Doctoral Degree in Nursing from the University of Alabama. Pictured here is Dr. Susan McLendon and her husband at her doctoral graduation ceremony. 2018 Rose Bowl in Pasa dena, California. It was during his time at UGA that he met the woman who is wife today, Susan Metzinger McLen don. When asked about how they met, he laughed and said, “It’s kind of a bad story” in that she was on a date with someone else. “She had a date with one of my buddies, and they were up in Athens fora [football] game. They came by our apartment after the game, because we were having a party. And that was when I met her.” Benny and Su san dated for 2 1/2 years and married on November 15, 1980. Susan graduated from Georgia Southwest ern as a registered nurse, and began working at Ev ans Memorial Hospital in Claxton. Today, with a Doctoral Degree in nurs ing from the University of Alabama, she is Dr. Susan McLendon. When Benny McLen don graduated from the University of Georgia, he says, “I didn’t really decide to come back here. It was just understood with my dad.” When Benny began his career working with his dad in 1978, the family construction work was a side business that his father had started in 1945, called Ben Roy McLendon Com pany. “We were mostly farmers and grew tobacco. My dad did this kind of work, with bulldozers and stuff, on the side.” In 1979, McLendon Enterprises was incorporated and the leadership of the business gradually transferred from father to son in the years to come. “There used to be a lot of general contractors here in Vidalia, and I worked as a subcontractor for them,” Benny said. “Then in the 80s, we started working for the DOT, the Department of Transportation. Now we build highways, do a lot of utility work, pipe work, as phalt work... we do all of it now. We call ourselves a ‘full service civil contrac tor.” Though McLendon Enterprises has over 200 employees today, the busi ness did not grow quickly. It grew gradually and “or ganically,” Benny said. BENNY AND RICK — Benny McLendon (left) and Rick Berry (right) not only played football at Robert Toombs Christian Academy, they coached the school's football team together for quite some time. "Rick was the bad cop, and I was the good cop," McLendon said, chuck ling at their sideline memories. Benny McLendon’s sister, Cheryl McLendon Cason, also worked for the family business for a time. Fast forward to present day, both of Cheryl Cason’s sons, Mike and Mel Cason, as well as all three of Ben ny’s children — Jennifer Hollis, B.J. McLendon, and Derek McLendon — work for McLendon Enterprises. “They’ve all found their niche, and they do very well,” Benny said. As a team and indi vidually, Benny and Susan McLendon have contrib uted much to the commu nity. One of their partnered contributions is the che motherapy waiting room at Meadows Regional Hos pital, The McLendon Fam ily Waiting Room. Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, and Benny was diagnosed with leuke mia in 2005. Both endured arduous rounds of che motherapy. As part of the Tommy and Shirley Strick land Cancer Center built in 2017, the McLendon fam ily funded the construction of the waiting room. “Be cause she and I have done so much chemotherapy, we told them that we would [fund] that,” Benny said. After Susan retired from the state health de partment, she worked with Dr. Nancy Stanley to devel op Mercy Medical Clinic — "a Christian nonprofit healthcare organization that operates as a safety-net clinic for uninsured, low- income adults with chronic diseases in South Georgia.” Susan “wrote a lot of grants to get them money [for the clinic]. She was on the ground floor for that proj ect, working behind the scenes.” Now, Susan works full time at Memorial Health Meadows Hospital, where she has been pivotal in local COVID relief as Director of Community Wellness and telemedicine. Despite how demand ing his work with the fam ily business has been over the years, Benny has spent much of his free time coaching local football teams. “I don’t hunt. I don’t fish. Coaching kids has al ways been my hobby,” he said. “I’ve coached at Rob ert Toombs and anywhere else they’d let me, like rec [recreational] Please see Chat page 13A FULL-SERVICE DEALER YANCEY BROS. CO., GEORGIA’S CAT DEALER SINCE 1914 Your productivity rests on the performance of your earthmoving equipment. We sell, rent, and service a wide range of construction equipment that works hard for your business and provides exceptional value. Caterpillar is known around the world as a leader in construction equipment thanks to a focus on durability, versatility, and performance. Count on Yancey Bros. Co. for the machines, tools, and attachments capable of boosting your productivity. YANCEYBROS.COM | 800-282-1562