3 days Ago By Joe Napsha
Ligonier Township native Ralph Kinney Bennett’s work in journalism took him from Greensburg to major newspapers around the nation and a national magazine in a four-decade career — but he never forgot his roots in the Ligonier area. “I just know he loved being a reporter and a writer, and he loved Ligonier.” said his son, George Bennett of Boynton Beach, Fla.
, a former reporter for the Palm Beach Post. Bennett, 83, died Dec. 18, 2024, in Delray Beach, Fla.
He was born March 3, 1941, in Latrobe Hospital, along with his twin brother, Roger King Bennett. They grew up in Rector, with their mother, Virginia McDonald Bennett and older brother, Richard. After graduating from Ligonier High School in 1959, he began his career in journalism at the Greensburg Tribune-Review as a summer reporter while attending Allegheny College in Meadville.
At Allegheny College, he met his future wife during freshman orientation in 1959. He married Virginia “Ginny” Hein of South Euclid, Ohio, on their college graduation day in 1963. He began his full-time reporting career with the New Haven Register in Connecticut, moving onto the Philadelphia Inquirer and then the National Observer, which was a weekly national newspaper in the 1960s and 1970s.
He later jointed the Washington, D.C., bureau of The Reader’s Digest, where he was a senior writer and editor for more than 30 years.
After retiring from The Reader’s Digest in 2002, he returned to Ligonier Township and became very involved in the community. Bennett was a member of the Fort Ligonier board of trustees and wrote the book “Ligonier 250: The Fort — The Town — The Valley” to commemorate the fort’s 250th anniversary in 2008. Bennett was a member for 15 years of the Ligonier Volunteer Hose Company No.
1 of Ligonier, said Phil Fleming, president of the fire company. “He was very much an enthusiastic member of the company and an active firefighter,” Fleming said. “He said that of all the things he had done in his life, he was most proud of being an active member of our hose company,” Fleming recalled Bennett telling him.
While working in Washington and raising a family in Bethesda, Md., he was a frequent visitor to Ligonier, where his mother was editor of the Ligonier Echo during the 1970s, George Bennett said. Working for The Readers Digest, he interviewed numerous congressional representatives and Cabinet secretaries.
He traveled around world, going on assignments to Europe and Latin America, George Bennett said. During his career, Ralph Bennett was talented enough to be earn assignments to interview civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
while in Philadelphia, Gerald Ford when he was vice president of the United States, Ronald Reagan before he was president and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower after he left the White House, George Bennett said. In addition his son, George, he is survived by his wife, Virginia “Ginny” Bennett; a daughter, Laura Doolittle of Johnson City, Tenn.
; a granddaughter; four grandsons; a great-grandson; and his twin brother. A celebration of life is planned for 1 p.m.
Jan. 11, at Ligonier Valley High School, with interment to follow at Ligonier Valley Cemetery. Arrangements are being handled by the McCabe Funeral Home, Ligonier.
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