Roland "Ben" Gray's Obituary
R. Benton “Ben” Gray, age 68 of Avon Lake, passed away December 1, 2019.
He practiced law in Cleveland, first with Thompson, Hine and Flory, and later from 1999 to 2017, through his own law firm dedicated to representing people with employment issues.
Born in Cleveland, Ben was raised in Russell, Ohio, where he attended West Geauga Schools. He went to the historically all-male Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, spanning the years when Kenyon went from first admitting classes of women for a Coordinate College to becoming fully coeducational. Ben served as president of Kenyon’s first coeducational student council and graduated in 1973, with distinction in English.
Along the way to law school, Ben earned a Masters Degree in English at the University of Rochester in New York, and taught composition and creative writing there and at the maximum-security prison Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York.
Before returning to Cleveland to practice law, Ben earned his J.D. at Duke University Law School in Durham, North Carolina. Over the course of his legal career, Ben was active in the Cleveland Bar Association and later the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, serving those organizations as a trustee and on their Certified Grievance Committees, which investigated ethics complaints against attorneys. In the early 2000s, Gray also headed the Cleveland Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Section, and helped to develop the holiday tradition of an annual Scrooge-Cratchit Dinner where lawyers from both the employee and management sides of Cleveland’s employment law practice would gather to raise money for Cleveland school students, channeled through the Books for Kids program. Ben was a frequent speaker on subjects ranging from employment law practice to attorney ethics.
In Cleveland Heights and later Avon Lake, Ben also coached youth sports, particularly recreational baseball and soccer. With his wife Kathleen of Avon Lake, he enjoyed perennial gardening, cooking, and raising English Setters.
Ben was preceded in death by his parents, Roland Benton Gray and Esther Lockwood Gray, and his sister Priscilla Jeanne Gray. He is survived by wife Kathleen, sons John and Michael and grandson Thomas of Cleveland Heights, and daughter Kerry and son Dan, both of Avon Lake.
A Celebration of Life gathering will be held on Friday, January 3, 2020 from 4-7 PM in the Chapel at Sunset Memorial Park, 6245 Columbia Rd. North Olmsted.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the National Park Foundation,donate.nationalparks.org/page/30910/donate/1 or your favorite charity.
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