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Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times

Boy Scout 2nd Class Steffen Bohn, 11, points due north for Ben Crawford during a Troop 158 Board of Review meeting for Steffen’s advancement to 1st Class. Crawford, of Blacksburg, recently received the 2007 AARP Andrus Award for Community Service for his commitment to volunteer work.

More than 1 million Virginians are members of AARP -- a nonprofit organization that seeks to enhance the lives of those 50 and older. Among them, Blacksburg's Ben Crawford rose to the top when he was awarded the 2007 AARP Andrus Award for Community Service.

The annual award, named after the organization's founder, Ethel Percy Andrus, is the top honor given to one AARP member from each state for his or her commitment to volunteer work.

"Our motto is to serve, not to be served and Ben Crawford is a personification of a volunteer dedicated to community service," said AARP spokesman Tony Hylton.

Crawford, 74, was nominated by the Blacksburg chapter of the AARP and received the award in Charlottesville in November. The local chapter also presented him with a community service award.

For Crawford, serving others has been both a career and a pastime for the majority of his life.

Born in West Virginia, he joined the Boy Scouts of America as a Cub Scout when he was 9.

"I've been with the Boy Scouts ever since then except when I was in the Army. I've had every volunteer position you can with the Boy Scouts from committee member to council president," Crawford said. "I believe very strongly in the character-building aspect of Scouting for young boys and families. I've seen it operate and I know it's a valuable program."

Crawford attended Virginia Tech for a year before serving in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper for two years. When he returned, he attended Concord College in West Virginia and majored in business administration.

His first job out of college was as an executive with Boy Scouts of America in Salem. He also worked as an insurance underwriter before returning to Concord College as a professor and assistant director of the school's economic center.

After working there for about four years, he took a job at West Virginia University, where he "did the same thing I'd been doing at Concord," he said. Crawford worked for West Virginia University on and off for 10 years, spending his "off" time as an administrative assistant to the director of federal state relations in West Virginia, and later, as deputy director of federal state relations and director of state planning, he said.

After that, he took a position as director of the national 4-H Youth Conference Center in Washington, D.C., for two years. Crawford returned to work for Concord and Bluefield colleges before moving to the New River Valley.

Here, Crawford worked as executive director of Ruritan National in Dublin for 13 years. As chief of the national civic service organization, he helped implement the Medal of Honor program, which provides youths the opportunity to meet recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor in Valley Forge, Pa.

He took a job at Virginia Tech as a state specialist in leadership and volunteer development, retiring from the university in 1995.

Since then, he has remained active as a member and "past-everything" of the Blacksburg chapter of AARP, Crawford said. He also serves on the Montgomery County Administrative 4-H Board, the Virginia Cooperative Extension Leadership Council, the Blacksburg Planning Commission and Housing Board, and the Boy Scouts' Board of Review for Troop 158, which he co-founded. He is a member of the Mount Tabor Ruritan Club and St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Blacksburg.

So how does this sort of dedication to service develop?

Crawford said that "if you live long enough and you do a little bit every year, and if you have a supportive wife and family supporting you and what you're trying to do, then over the years it all adds up and you've done a whole lot with the help of a lot of people."

Crawford and his wife, Carol Ann Crawford, have three children who live in neighboring states.