CAROL EUBANK PASSES AWAY

 BY JOHN OLESKY (BJ 1969-96)

Carol Eubank (BJ 1984-2001) passed away.

She began in Accounting, then worked in Retail Advertising as Chuck Vella’s secretary and then in Research and Promotion, later renamed Marketing and Communications.

Carol spent decades writing for BJ employee publications, which had such names as Tower Topics and Sidebar.

Carol was active with the Portage Lakes Community Council, which her husband Jim Eubank co-founded. She was co-chair of the annual Portage Lakes Boat Parade. She received the Portage Lakes Community Council’s Meritorious Service Award.

Carol also organized many get-togethers of BJ retirees, for Advertising and Circulation.

Carol received the 2018 Women’s History Project’s Woman of the Year Award in the innovation category.

Carol was involved with the Green Historical Society. She was devastated when four Springfield Township young people and one from Akron destroyed the 1885 Lichtenwalter Schoolhouse by setting it on fire. Police sounds items from the hallowed landmark in the criminals’ homes.

I don’t know how she found time to do so many things for so many causes and for her friends.

The 1957 Coventry High grad, who lived in Portage Lakes, was a key player in the Portage Lakes Historical Society.

Carol also was active in the Portage Lakes Kiwanis Club.

Hell, Carol even was in the mix when BJ folks went Christmas caroling. Appropriate. Caroling with Carol.

She orchestrated the retirement party at Belgrade Gardens for her friend, Janet Hall, from the BJ Circulation Department. It was Janet who first tipped us off about Carol’s passing.

I once ran into Carol while attending a Greystone Theatre event put on my former BJ movie critic Mark Dawidziak in the Greystone Building in downtown Akron maybe a decade ago. She greeted me like a long-lost friend. Another Greystone was in Mahoning County. Carol has been to events there, too. Greystone was the name of  the magnificent Arts & Crafts style residence of Olive A. and Wilford P. Arms which is preserved a century later as The Arms Family Museum of Local History. 

Former BJ home writer Mary Beth Breckenridge and Carol have the same birthday, March 26.

In a 2014 BJ Alums blog article I wrote about Carol’s activities the headline was:

Carol Eubank: Busy, Busy, Busy

Most accurate headline ever written.