Around Town

‘The Best Dad Any Kid Could Ever Ask For’: Family, Friends Gather To Remember Steve Benko

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Lindsay Gardner talked to her dad, Steve Benko, for the last time just a few days before he passed away. 

The two sat in his hospital room, unsure of what to say, Gardner recalled Thursday. “So I asked him, I said, ‘Dad, what do you want us to do?’ We didn’t know what to do. Who knows what to do? This isn’t something we’re groomed for,” Gardner told hundreds of congregants gathered at First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan for Benko’s memorial service, and hundreds more watching a livestream online. “What he told me was, he just wants all of us to go out and be happy.

Around Town

‘Tireless Caring, Devotion and Love’: Friends Remember Steve Benko; Town Renames Waveny Pool in His Honor

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Bea Watkins got to know Steve Benko at New Canaan High School in the late-1960s, and for the last 11 years has worked for him as office manager of the town’s Recreation Department. There at the Rec offices in Waveny House, they often reminisced about mutual friends, parties and weddings, as well as Watkins’s brother, Lem, who’d worked for Benko one summer years ago. “I have always been in awe of Steve’s work ethic and proud to be on his team,” Watkins told NewCanaanite.com in an email when asked for her thoughts on Benko. “He always took such pride in everything he and our crew has had to accomplish for the residents in terms of activities, programs, and facilities. With the recent influx of new residents who continue to voice how astonished they are with all that the Recreation Department and the town has to offer, I know that it is largely due to the hard work and effort of Steve.”

Calling Benko “Mr. New Canaan,” Watkins remembered her friend as singularly passionate about the town and what it offers. “I always enjoyed sharing thoughts and ideas with Steve and a good argument was exciting as well,” she said.

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Stephen Edward Benko Jr., 71

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Stephen Edward Benko Jr., 71, of New Canaan, died Feb. 12 at Stamford Hospital after a brief battle with cancer. He was 71. Born Dec. 28, 1950 to Madeleine Murphy Benko and Stephen Edward Benko Sr., Steve grew up in an Orchard Drive house that his father built with wood salvaged from an old barn on what would become the Saxe Middle School property, and later built his own house on nearby Douglas Road.

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‘A Day of Profound Sadness’: Town Officials Report Passing of Steve Benko

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Steve Benko, a lifelong New Canaan resident known to local families through five decades as head of the town Recreation Department, died overnight, officials said Saturday. A former chief of New Canaan Fire Co.,#1, he died “after a very courageous, but mercifully short, battle with cancer,” the organization’s president, Rob Mallozzi, said in an email to Fire Company members. “His family was by his side.”

“It is a day of profound sadness to our Fire Department and Company and our entire town,” Mallozzi said. “Please keep the Benko family in your prayers.”

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan issued this statement Saturday: “New Canaan lost one of its most dedicated and long-serving Town employees Friday night when Steve Benko passed away at Stamford Hospital surrounded by his family after a short battle with cancer. Steve served 50 years as Recreation Director of the Town of New Canaan and was a mentor and friend to generations of youth, Town employees, Fire Co.

Animal 411

Rule-Breakers Prompt Town To Install New Sign at Dog Park Regarding Prohibition on Young Children

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Saying some of those who use the dog run at Waveny are breaking a rule that prohibits young children from entering the fenced-in area, officials are planning to install an even more explicit sign there. This wording already appears on a “Rules of the Dog Park” sign outside Spencer’s Run: “Children under five are prohibited from entering Spencer’s Run—no exceptions. This is for the protection of the children.”

Yet recently, Parks & Recreation Commissioner George Benington said, when he’s gone to the popular dog run “there have been some not-so-bright adults who have been bringing in some of their toddlers.”

Addressing the full Commission during its Nov. 10 meeting, Benington asked whether a dedicated sign saying “No children under the age of five” could be posted at the gated entrance to Spencer’s Run. “One mother gives us some pushback in there,” he said at the meeting, held via videoconference. 

Recreation Director Steve Benko said that although the rules of the park are spelled out on the gate, people don’t read them.