Mrs. Laree Benton To Celebrate 92 Years

Mrs. Laree Malone Benton has lived in Jasper County for the preponderance of her life—which has been long and fruitful by all accounts. She will celebrate 92 earthly years come January 26, 2020—well on her way to becoming another county centenarian!

Laree, by her own sentiment, was “born and bred” in Jasper County. She explained being born in the Hopewell Community at the Malone homeplace which still stands today.

“I was delivered in that white house that is just past Hopewell Baptist Church,” she recounts.

The daughter of the late Irene Roberts and Leon Eugene Malone was an only child who married another “only child” in the late Fred Benton. The young couple decided collectively that having just one offspring was not their preferred option so they had three—the late Fred “Buster,” III, Becky Benton Felts of Thomasville, and James Eugene Benton of Monroe.

I had the pleasure of meeting their youngest “Gene,” as she calls him, last year. She said that he keeps “a close eye on her.” Our paths crossed by chance in court one day, I wrote about it awhile back when I was being sassy. He was the presiding judge and I was a prospective juror and he made it a point to introduce himself and note his Jasper County roots after discovering mine. I told his mom about it and she was tickled pink to know he still had his southern manners.

Laree explained how at age eight she and her parents moved to the city, just off the square, when her father (a postman) accepted a job at the newly built post office in 1936. She explained how she has lived all over Monticello whether it was the east, west or north of the Square.

After finishing high school here, a young Laree ventured off to the University of Georgia to major in chemistry. Upon completion of college, she moved back to Monticello and married Fred in the fall of 1950 when they also built their first home as newlyweds which is just next door to where she currently lives. She and Fred had grown up together and both attended the Monticello Methodist Church as youths.

The two had dated throughout high school and as fate would have it, eventually married. Laree, being the spitfire she is, noted that she had dated others but love and life always led her back to Fred.

So soon after her betrothal to Fred, a job opportunity came knocking. She was hired as the first ever lab technician at Jasper Memorial Hospital. She admitted to being a little skeptical about the job at first but that’s only because she had no script to follow instead she would be a trendsetter.

Ten years into that job, then Jasper County schools Superintendent Doy Gay called with a request for her to teach chemistry one hour a day at Jasper County High School. After doing that “one hour a day” gig for Supt. Gay for awhile, Laree said she called in a favor to the superintendent by asking for a job at the school. He obliged and she began teaching biology, chemistry and physics soon after. Laree joked that before she began teaching she had vowed not to teach ever, but ended up doing just that and loving it. And others loved her doing it too including many of her students. I had the opportunity to flip through her well preserved 1969 yearbook that many staff and students had autographed. All of the comments alluded to her proficiency at teaching but one particular comment alluded to so so much more. It reads as follows:

Dear Mama,

As much as I have fussed and carried on about you as a teacher I’ll come out and tell you that you’ve meant so much to me all the way up. Your discipline on me, understanding and encouragement have made me understand how much you care for me and (how) much you want to make a fine outstanding man out of me. I only hope that I won’t ever let you down—

With love and respect,

Buster

Enough said.

Laree commented several times that “in a small community like Monticello you do what is needed to fill a void.” And she has filled lots of voids while being a trendsetter through the years whether it was being the first hospital lab technician, teaching chemistry one hour a day, or hosting Monticello’s first ever Sears counter.

Following her retirement from teaching, Laree opened a gift gallery & flower shop on the square, which changed locations several times moving down the block stretch of Greene Street. She said the concept of the Sears counter just came out of nowhere—one day a man appeared in the store and asked if she would like to take Sears catalog orders from customers and that Sears would do the deliveries to the store and that customers could then come and pick up their goods from her.

Coming from a long line of generations of Malones and Bentons in Jasper County, Laree joked that her famliy is kin to just about everybody here which she says might not be a good thing as she gave a hearty chuckle.

If you have the opportunity to see Laree out & about over the next few weeks give her a huge 92nd birthday wish.