Fittingly, Tom and Sue Benson laugh when they think about how they spent their 34th wedding anniversary in 2011.
“We spent it in our backyard poking out eyes in cardboard Lucille Ball masks,” Tom says with a smile, referring to a successful attempt by the National Comedy Center brass to set a Guinness World Record for “Lucy Ricardo-look-alikes” in honor of the Jamestown native’s centennial birthday taking place the next day.
“There were 963 people that ended up showing up that day,” he adds. “So Sue and I had to make about 1,000 of these things. She’s been doing everything possible for this organization to help it move along.”
“We’ve had a lot of laughs,” Sue says. “There’s been some stress in getting some things done, but it’s been so fun.”
Laughter, it turns out, has not been the exception in this relationship — it’s been the rule. Almost literally.
Tom, a 1975 graduate of SUNY Jamestown Community College has played a central role in the decade-long development of the NCC, which opened in 2018, as chairman of its board of directors. He’s quick to deflect any credit to the many hands that made it possible: Journey Gunderson, executive director, Kelly Carlin, daughter of legendary comedian George Carlin, and Lewis Black, a giant in the comedy world who serves on the center’s advisory board, among them.
“I still don’t believe it’s here,” Benson, whose initial career had been as an accountant and local business developer, said. “I come here all the time just to watch people laugh and watch their experience here. It’s surreal. I just cannot believe we made this — and I say we, because I was involved heavily, but this was a lot of people.”
But, in terms of personal development, he’s even quicker to deflect credit to his wife and makes no hesitation in calling the former Suzette DeLong — a 1988 JCC graduate — his “hero.”
Originally a student in the college’s nursing program, Sue became a full-time mother when twins, Megan and Amy, arrived in 1979 and daughter Katie arrived in 1981. By the time Katie got to first grade, Sue admitted she felt that “she had gotten too comfortable being at home.”
“I literally liked being home and I was getting to the point where I didn’t like going out,” she said. “I didn’t even want to drive long distances and was almost afraid to drive places. It was like my identity was the girls and Tom. My identity had disappeared.”
“She lost her confidence and didn’t come in contact with anybody because her job was trying to keep those kids alive until tomorrow and put food on the table,” Tom said. “With Katie in school, I said to Sue, ‘You’re getting out of the house. You’re going back to school.’”
And so, she returned to the college’s Falconer Street campus in Jamestown — this time to earn an associate’s degree in education before transferring to SUNY Fredonia, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English education in 1991.
“I went back to JCC for a couple of reasons,” Sue said. “It allowed me to go to a familiar place, I eased back into something I had gone away from for 10 years, it was close to home, I knew the instructors from when I had first gone, and the price was great. They helped me to fill in the courses I would need to transfer to Fredonia and it was seamless.”
Her children remained her first priority, though.
“I went back part-time and really worked around their schedule,” she said. “JCC was flexible with some of the things I needed to pick up. I could do two nights a week. It does get harder when you go into a bigger school, but they were very good about meeting my needs and allowing me to stay home and get my degree while also raising three kids.”
From there, Benson became an English teacher in the Jamestown Public Schools system and took an opportunity in the early 2000s to work for Erie-2 Chautauqua Cattaraugus BOCES as a staff developer for English teachers across the region.
“Now suddenly, the girl who used to be afraid to drive, was driving all across western New York to do something she loved,” she said.
In 2003 she became the principal of Westfield Elementary School, before returning to BOCES in 2008 as the region’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, retiring in 2016.
“Things unfolded and as they unfolded, I felt confident enough to step into new things,” she said. “JCC helped bring back that confidence. You can lose it in a role you’re not evolving in and that evolution started at JCC and the ability to walk into that no matter what that would be and to try it.”
And while her husband is steadfast in heaping praise on her, Sue always deflects credit back to Tom.
“He’s the one that took me down there and pushed me to go back,” she said. “His support on the days and the nights when I had a late class or had to drive back late from the Buffalo area — he made it all work with the kids. … I just couldn’t have asked for a better partner through all this.”
“Throughout all of that, she never once sacrificed being a great wife or mother and never missed anything,” Tom said of Sue. “For folks who are looking for a starting point from a non-traditional track, she definitely is the poster child for that.”
And in terms of her post-retirement journey and having a front row seat to the development of the National Comedy Center, Sue has loved seeing her husband’s vision for the future of the Jamestown community.
“I’m very proud of what he’s been able to do,” Sue said. “I’ve tried my best to provide moral support, but he’s worked so hard. He believes in this community and the possibilities. Sometimes people can’t see that, but he can see them. He can see them and make them happen. He built a candy wrapping machine in the garage for God sakes.”
“It’s just been a fun adventure to go on.”