01/02/2026
Here’s a great write-up from Elk County Strider, LeRoy Kopp
“Admittedly I really dropped the ball on completing this article after BZ passed away. I had done an interview with him before he passed but didn't have all the info I wanted so had planned to come back the next week or so to continue to gain insight on him but he had unfortunately passed away before this could happen. However, since the New Year's Day run was dedicated to him I figured it would be a good time to finally release it, somewhat incomplete though it may be. Some of the data is simply from either his memory or me trying to remember what he told me (before I did an actual interview), thus inaccuracies of dates and such may be present. If any such errors are present please let me know. Thanks
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BZ
“Heroes get remembered but legends never die!”
Inspire an individual enough in their own life or inspire a lot of people and you will never die. Work hard, stay steady, pursue greatness and you will never die. Live a life of kindness and thoughtfulness towards others and you will never die. There are plenty of ways a person can achieve legendary status.
Recently the physical form of one such person has sadly passed from this world. Fortunately, however, he exhibited the above mentioned qualities and thus he will endure to live on in spirit as a local legend.
Benjamin Zappa was born in 1940 and passed away in September of 2025. Though he was not originally from Ridgway, PA he had lived there since his earlies twenties. Benjamin Zappa (BZ) was a beloved retired science teacher who also happened to be a local running legend. BZ had been a founding member of the Elk County Striders in 1983 when he would serve as Vice President of the club for the first couple years. He became president of the club in 1985 or 1986 (he couldn’t remember which) and continued to serve as president of the club up until his recent passing.
BZ started running during the running boom of the early 1970’s. He had been working on a National Science Course for bacteriology, for the summer at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana where he would earn his Master’s degree. One day a colleague asked Ben to join him for a run on the track at the university and he agreed to do so, which was reportedly a very new high-tech track for that era. Also keep in mind that he previously had a smoking habit from about age 14 to age 30, and thus quit not long before starting his running journey so he had an uphill battle from the start, not that he would let damaged lungs stop him.
Upon returning to Ridgway for the school year, he would begin doing laps back and forth through his yard daily. It wouldn’t be long though until he realized he had a worn a dirt trail through his yard and finally said “enough of this sh*t,” and proceeded to take off down the street instead. Since those early days he would go on to have a decades long and pretty impressive running career.
If you know BZ you have probably heard some of his running stats before but here are some highlights anyways. He had a goal to run 750 races (road races and sprint triathlons mostly). He would continue racing for many years until he finally stopped racing at this exact number of 750. He had a run streak (certified) of 6.41 years during which he had run at least 1 mile a day. He also had another goal to run 35,000 lifetime miles and he would go on to log 35, 072 miles. He participated in running races of all sorts of distances from 5k’s to marathons. His first marathon was in 1984 where he and about 10 other friends trained for and completed the Marine Core Marathon in Annapolis Maryland.
Ben also participated in 26 sprint triathlons including many at the Senior National Games. Impressively he told me that his PR’s for road races in the 5k, 10k and the Lee Foster 5 mile where at the age of 49. He said his 5k PR was 17:36, which was noteworthy for me because a few weeks previously I had run a 17:36 at the BZ Classic 5k in Ridgway PA which is named after him. This race was a PR for me at the time but I was only spry 42 years old, not 49. I believe he said he ran Pittsburgh 10k one year in 37:25 and then the next year he was an invited guest because of the 37:25 performance and then proceeded to win the 50-54 age group for that invitation year.
Indeed based on the info and stories he told me it seems that his prime running days were in his late forties and early fifties, which defies conventional logic. Prior to this year he held the top 4 fastest times for the Lee Foster 5 miler in St. Marys for the men’s 50-59 age group. Ben shows us that just because you may be at an age that most people would think your physical performance would start to fade, it isn’t always the case. Indeed BZ was a beast of an athlete in his forties and fifties and wanted everyone to know that with good consistent training that you can be too. He did also do weight lifting sessions several times a week for many years.
I think to myself, “If I decide to keep up my own run training can I also be at BZ level a decade from now?” Maybe I will be and maybe I won't be, but BZ has shown me that it is indeed possible.
Aside from his dedication as a runner and the many hours a month he would spend putting together the Elk County Strider Newsletter in addition to performing other duties as president of the club, Ben was also a dedicated teacher. His wife Cheryl had been a guidance counselor in the Ridgway School district and he was missing her badly when my wife and I had visited him (I think in July) when he was in the DuBois hospital at the time. We had come for a visit on what would have been their 57 year anniversary (I think that’s how many years he had said). You could tell he had really loved her and had really loved his students as well.
I gathered that he went above and beyond for his students and one story had really struck that idea home for my wife and I. He recounted how one student had asked if he would be testing them. He said, “do you mean, am I not going to test you.” The student replied that another teacher had stated that they were too dumb to be tested so she hoped Mr. Zappa would indeed be testing them. BZ was pretty aghast that a teacher would say this to their students and even decades later when we visited him, you could tell that it still really bothered him decades later. To me that spoke volumes about his kindness and love for his students and goes to show the kind of person that he was.
As President of the Elk County Striders I’m sure most of us know that for many years he spent many hours a week assembling the monthly Strider newsletter by hand and sent many copies out in the mail every month for members to enjoy. He also always seemed to know who had been running what race or event. For example, a few years ago I ran a 5k on Thanksgiving in Ashville, NC and didn’t post my results or really tell anyone I was going to run it and yet he knew about it and posted it in the following newsletter. I asked him how he knew I ran that race and he said he would spend a few hours a week looking up results on Falcon Timing, Catch Me Timing and other such timing services to keep up with who was running what event and that he just enjoyed doing it. I think it brought him great joy to see people participating in his favorite sport.
I’m not sure if another figure like Ben Zappa will emerge in our local running community again. The length of his running career, his smoking fast times in his 40’s, 50’s and beyond, his hard-working attitude to help the running community (and community in general), his kindness and his love running. However, even if he remains one of a kind, we can still all learn a few things from BZ and incorporate them into our own lives. Let’s all get out this year and run or walk a few miles for BZ and hold ourselves to the same high standards he held himself. If we do that his legacy and the strong local running community he has helped to create will continue to live on through time. “
