Kenneth J. Benedik

A Memorial Mass will be held Saturday, Dec. 15, at noon at St. Edmond’s Catholic Church in Lafayette for Kenneth J. Benedik, who died on Sunday, Dec. 2, after a brief illness.
A reception will follow at Grace Presbyterian Fellowship Hall.
Mr. Benedik was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 30, 1946, which caused him to joke with his father that he “paid his own way as a tax deduction.” He was educated in Catholic elementary schools in Pittsburgh and Kittaning, Pennsylvania, and in Wheeling, West Virginia.
He graduated from the Marist Preparatory School in Penndel, Pennsylvania, to which he later returned as a teacher and assistant dean of students. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Modern European History from the Catholic University of America in l969, a Master of Arts Degree from St. Paul’s College in 1973, and a Master of Arts in Teaching Degree from Trinity College in 1974.
He was ordained to the priesthood in l974 and served in parishes in Virginia, Minnesota and Louisiana. He served at St. Edmond’s in Lafayette, St. Joseph in Paulina, and St. Louis, King of France, in St. Paul, Minnesota. He served as a hospital chaplain at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and as a counselor for the Family Life Office for the Catholic Diocese in Lafayette.
After he resigned from the ministry, he began to build his counseling practice and was one of the first 150 people licensed as a professional counselor in Louisiana.
He also held licenses as a substance abuse counselor and a marriage and family therapist. He served as president of the Louisiana Mental Health Counselors’ Association and the Louisiana Counseling Association.
He taught at UL-Lafayette for 20 years, first as an adjunct health instructor in the Kinesiology Department and eventually as a full time faculty member. He was involved in creating online courses in the College of Education.
He retired in 2009 in order to devote more time to his thriving counseling practice. He not only worked as a psychotherapist, but also as an expert witness, parenting coordinator, and author and co-author of numerous articles.
He was a co- founder of Carefree, a free mental health clinic in Lafayette, which provided free services to the needy and uninsured. He lobbied at the state Legislature for the reform of mental health laws that would allow people better access to services, and in Washington as part of the American Counseling Association’s efforts to get Congress to pass the “Wellstone Amendment,” which set mental health and substance abuse services on par with physical health services.
Up until his illness, he was a major player in the political action committee which focused on lobbying for counseling by licensed professional counselors as an instrumental part of treatment for mental health patients.
Not long after he began his counseling practice, he fell in love with Jacki Robichaux “the first time he met her.” They were not only great spouses but also work collaborators presenting at conferences and workshops together from Montreal to Lafayette and California to Washington, D.C.
Jacki retired from UL after 26 years of teaching. Ken often said, “The best part of Jacki being retired is that we can have coffee together and talk in the morning before I go to work.”
Creative cooking and carpentry were dear to his heart, as were conversations about all aspects of history. He always supported Jacki with her landscaping hobbies and they would always take time to sit on the swing, eat a diet popsicle together, and share their thoughts on life.
Ken believed that one should work to have a calm and centered life with passionate love for one’s wife, enjoyable work and good compensation for it.
He is survived by his brothers James and friend, Jenny, and Donald and wife, Trish; his nephew Christopher, niece Shannon; and by in-laws and their spouses plus many generations of nieces and nephews on Jacki’s side of the family.
He is preceded in death by his father, Sylvester; his mother, Catherine; his sister Ruth; his best friend, Brother Al Thiffault.