Heaton dies, leaves legacy of life well lived
Robert R. “Bob” Heaton, a Butler native, and successful self-made businessman, entrepreneur and philanthropist, born six months before the Black Monday stock market crash of October 1929, died Saturday at his home in Butler Township under hospice care. He was 91.
Heaton was well known as a benefactor to Butler County Community College. His 90th birthday in 2019 was marked with an open house and reception at his beloved BC3.
“He valued education and hard work,” said his daughter, Leanne Heaton. “He was able to educate himself, and he realized what a benefit it had been in his life. He wanted to make it a little bit easier for someone else.
“He was an amazing man.”
Heaton, who joined the workforce at the tender age of 11, later worked four decades as a funeral director and mortician before helping start a real estate development company.
In 2016, Butler County Community College's John A. Beck Jr. Library was transformed into the Heaton Family Learning Commons.
BC3 officials launched the $5.1 million library renovation project using a $2.3 million state grant and a $1 million donation from Heaton.
“I really think that he saw himself in our students,” Nick Neupauer, BC3 president, said of why Heaton became such a backer of the college. “Bob loved our students. His face would just beam with pride whenever he had the opportunity to talk to our students.”
“He knew how tough it was to pull himself up,” said Ruth Purcell, retired executive director of the BC3 Education Foundation, “and he wanted to give other people the opportunity. He loved the college. He loved the students.”
Heaton's legacy was rooted in humble beginnings in the shadow of the Great Depression. He was 11 when he got his first job at the Zellsman Motor Company, a Studebaker dealership on South Main Street in Butler.“He was the parts kid,” Leanne said. “He'd run for parts on his bicycle.”Another duty was washing customers' cars. But the mechanics eventually got tired of shuttling the vehicles to him.“So they taught him to drive,” Leanne said. Back then, it didn't matter that he was only 11.“It was during the Depression, nobody cared,” she said. “He was able to do it. He'd drive the car across the street and washed it, and drove it back.”That job would also lead to Heaton's love of cars that lasted his entire life. He became a collector of antique cars, and was a repeat buyer of a Tesla vehicle.At 14, as the U.S. was embroiled in World War II, he got another job, this time working at the former Bantam Car Company.“He was too young for the (war),” Leanne, “but he had the patriotism that was all around.”He and some of his buddies became part of the so-called “victory shift,” a 6 to 11 p.m. gig after school at the company.“They had to lie about their age,” Leanne said of her father and his childhood friends. “They were all 14 but they said they were 16.”The teen employees assembled trailers for military Jeeps and helped build “ducks,” which were amphibious landing crafts.“There was a very strong lack of men,” Heaton recalled in a 2015 interview with the Butler Eagle. “They were all in the Army, and anybody that was strong enough got into this war effort because there weren't a lot of people to do these things.”He was taking home $40 a week in pay, “which was huge money for a teenager,” Leanne said.
Following the war, Heaton went to work at Benson's Men's Wear on Main Street in Butler. He helped with sales.One day at work a certain customer came in for a new pair of pants. The customer had his younger daughter with him. She caught Heaton's eye.“Dad was smitten,” Leanne said, “and he volunteered to drive out to West Sunbury to deliver the pants.”A few years later, in 1951, he would marry the customer's daughter, Marion McGinnis. The union lasted 52 years.He graduated from Butler High School a half-year early in 1947, and subsequently attended what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland to study mortuary science. That was not his first choice of study.“He wanted to become a doctor,” Leanne said, “but he knew he couldn't afford medical school.”He worked part time at a funeral home near the school to help cover the cost of his classes. He graduated in 1950.Heaton and his wife moved to Ridgway, Elk County, so that he could apprentice at the Gallup Funeral Home.“Shortly thereafter,” Leanne said, “surprise, surprise, I came along.”Within two years, the couple returned to Butler where he started a new position at the then-Thompson Funeral Home.“He was a funeral director, embalmer, mortician,” Leanne said, “whatever needed to be done.” He worked there for 42 years.While there, owner Glenn Thompson took Heaton under his wing, and taught him about investments and handling money.
Following his retirement from funeral service, he applied his knowledge of business and investing to a new interest by becoming a real estate developer.He and friend, Glenn R. Logan, founded RHGL Inc. Logan was the former owner of Logan Candy Co. in Butler. Together, they were responsible for housing developments at Avon Drive, Meridian Highlands, Stirling Village, Camelot Woods and Shady Lane Farms as well as numerous individual homes in the area.Wife Marion died in 2003. He later shared his affections with MaryAnn McGuirk Zeigler, until her death in 2011, and then with Martha Jane Keller Keasey, who was his companion until her death in 2015.Following the death of his business partner, Heaton administered the Glenn R. Logan Scholarship Trust for Butler High School and the Glenn R. Logan and Rhea Jean McCandless Logan Family Trust.He was also named a trustee of the J. Robert and Alberta C Rodgers Memorial Trust of Slippery Rock following the demise of his dear friend Evelyn Rodgers.His struggles to support himself through his own schooling, Heaton acknowledged, spurred his interest in charitable causes that focused on education, particularly with a $1 million contribution to a library renovation project at BC3.But despite the incredible generosity, he was not a backer of the college when it was founded in 1965.Like Heaton, there were others who also “opposed local tax dollars going to this new sector in higher education,” said Neupauer, who was named president in 2007.“When it first started, he was not in favor of the community college because they were doing too much academics,” Leanne said of her father. “He thought that was not relevant to Butler at the time.“But since they adapted their focus and gone more toward trade-type businesses, trade-type training, he grew more and more involved with them. He was extremely proud to support Butler County Community College.”Purcell said Heaton had previously started a scholarship at the college to assist students studying certain two-year occupational programs when she and Michelle Jamieson, recently retired education foundation associate director, and Neupauer asked him for a $1 million personal gift in 2015.He obliged with the donation to renovate the library, which subsequently was renamed the Heaton Family Learning Center.The state-of-the-art library transformed the campus, Purcell said, and became a source of personal pride for Heaton.He eventually would share with Purcell what it meant to him. “He said, 'Ruth, this is the best thing I've ever done in my life.'”
“Bob was a good man who liked helping people,” said longtime friend Howie Pentony, founder and senior financial adviser for Pentony Capital Management in Portersville. “He did a lot of good things for the people in this county.”Pentony managed Heaton's personal finances. In his last few years, Heaton had asked Pentony to help give worthy causes that could use his resources.“He was getting older,” Pentony said, “and he wanted to give his money away while keeping just enough to maintain him.”Charlie Stitt of Penn Township, another friend, said he and Heaton talked every day in the last few year.“He talked about a lot of subjects of mutual interest,” Stitt said. “We talked about life. We talked about the Lord — he was a staunch believer. We had a lot of talks about Scripture and these kind of things.”He called Heaton “one of the most generous and caring individuals that you could ever meet.”Neupauer said he, too, enjoyed his talks with Heaton, and the fatherly advice Heaton would occasional impart.“He was a great father,” Leanne said. “I had a wonderful childhood.”There will be no public visitation for Heaton, but his daughter hopes to have a celebratory service of his life later this year — possibly in the summer and preferably at BC3. It would offer the chance for those who knew him to pay their respects.Said Leanne: “He certainly deserves it.”
