By Doug Miller
"She was always a Long Beach resident at heart; she lived for that place," said her daughter Stacey Lewis of Plainview. "Walking down the street, everybody knew her."
Family, colleagues and clients joined together over the weekend to celebrate the woman whose love of her grandchildren and her career helped her maintain her focus even when losses in her personal life mounted. For many in Long Beach she was the face of the Herald, known far better than even the paper's reporters. When she finally stepped down as the Herald's chief ad rep in the fall of 2003, she never stopped being its ambassador, friends said.
Budin came to the Herald late in life, and there was never an indication early on that she would have any particular gift for sales, her children said.
She was born Joan Feigenberg on Valentine's Day 1939 in Brooklyn and grew up in Laurelton, Queens. At the age of 20 she married Elliot Budin at the Rosyln Country Club and moved to Plainview. She raised two daughters, Bari and Stacey, and lived quite happily in Plainview until they became college-aged. That's when she decided, in 1981, to go out and get a job.
"She basically just started working for an advertising agency, named Getting to Know You," Lewis said. "Each town had its own phone book that went into the homes of new homeowners, and on the front page it would have one bakery listed, one drug store and one of everything else. That's when she found out she had a knack for sales. She was based on Long Island but became a manager and she would go all over, like to Texas ... Cincinnati ... all over. Later she branched off to magazines and to health insurance before going to Richner."
Richner Communications, the Herald's parent company that publishes 15 newspapers and 10 PrimeTime Guides, opened a Long Beach paper in 1990. Budin was hired in early 1996 as the paper was becoming established, but almost immediately her career was put on hold by the death of her husband. When she finally came aboard in August of that year, her colleagues said, it was with a rare vigor.
"I think we were like therapy for her," said Cliff Richner, the Herald's co-publisher. "This may be an odd thing to say about a married couple, but Joan and her husband were particularly close, and when he died and she started this job it was like one door had closed for her and another opened."
An independent woman for the first time in her life, Budin became the face of the Herald in Long Beach. She took an apartment here and threw herself into getting to know the city and its business community. Her clients apparently appreciated the attention, and business soared.
"She was very engaging, a really special woman," said Sharon Player, the director of public affairs for Long Beach Medical Center, a long-time client of the Herald. "She was always very comical. She complained once that there was another Joan at the Herald that everyone confused her with, and when I finally met this woman she was a foot taller than Joan, skinny-minnie, long blonde hair ... It was typical Joan with her deadpan sense of humor.
"But her favorite topic was her grandchildren," Player said. "Always. She described waking them up one night and taking them out in the middle of the night to play in the snow. The kids were like, 'Mommy would never let us do this'!"
Budin was first diagnosed with cancer in 1998 but she was reluctant at first to lighten her work load. She scheduled her chemotherapy sessions for late Thursday nights so she would be sick for the weekend but back up and about on Monday mornings, Richner said.
"The clients loved her. Even today they always ask about her," said Rhonda Glickman, Richner's vice president in charge of sales. "It's such a loss, she was so special. The other day my daughter and I were watching the video from her wedding and there was Joan, the first one on the dance floor."
By 2003, the disease and its treatment had taken their tolls, and Budin cut back to part-time, then slowly ceded control over what she had always thought of as her territory. She gave up her apartment in Long Beach and moved in with Stacey and her family in Plainview until last July, when she moved to Florida to live with her daughter Bari and her family.
"Joan was just about the sweetest woman I have ever known," wrote Lt. Keith Grant in an e-mail. Lt. Grant was the Long Beach Herald editor until he joined the U.S. Army in 2003. "She was always so warm and caring - and so sincere about it - that it was impossible to be in a bad mood when she was around. Every office has a select few people that make working there a delight, and she was definitely one."
When the end approached, she met with her rabbi and wrote her own eulogy. Richner said he was surprised and deeply moved that he and his brother, co-publisher Stuart Richner, were among the people Budin mentioned.
"She said she was grateful for the opportunities we had given her and that we never cursed around her," Cliff said. "And she reminded us that she had doubled our sales while she was here."
Budin is survived by her daughters Stacey and Bari, their husbands David Lewis and Stuart Amols, and grandchildren Alyx, Chad, David, Dani and Kyla.
Comments about this story? DMiller@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
