Walter Been, 97, still runs every aspect of his auto body business without lifting heavy tools.

When you work for a newspaper, people never fail to offer their opinion on who they think will make a good person to write about.
I was in a south St. Louis barber shop photographing for a story about the proprietor when an elderly man and his son walked in. The proprietor immediately sounded, “Now there’s somebody you need to be taking a picture of! You all should do a story on him!”

Yeah, I’ve heard that before, I thought. But as I was about to very politely shoot down the suggestion, I learned that the Suburban Journals had already done a story about the elderly man. The news clip cut from the paper and was browning in a frame on the wall of the the barber shop.
lt was about an 89-year-old man, Walter Been, who was in the auto body business for so long, 60 years, that he couldn’t leave it behind. It said he still shows up at the body shop every day. And it also said that he had owned Riteway Auto Body on Delor Street in the Bevo neighborhood since 1945.

Only more amazing was that the story clip was ten nearly ten years old. Mr. Been is about to turn 98. And, according to his son, is still involved most every aspect of his business.  And he STILL comes to the auto body shop every day. But every now and then, he steps out for a haircut.