FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) – A special celebration took place in Fort Lauderdale, as a community gathered to celebrate the 100th birthday of a World War II veteran.<\/p>\n
Friends, family and loved ones came together to celebrate the birthday of Gordon Smith on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally, it\u2019s like a reunion for his first family, his second family, and everybody in between,\u201d said an attendee.<\/p>\n
The Navy veteran enlisted with his twin brother in World War II.<\/p>\n
His son, Randall G. Smith St. John said that his grandmother wrote to her congressman for her boys to serve on the same aircraft carrier during D-Day.<\/p>\n
St. John\u2019s uncle was one of many who did not live to see this day.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has outlived many family members, and cousins, and uncles, and we\u2019re so blessed to have him with us to this day, still working 40 hours a week,\u201d said Randall G. Smith St. John.<\/p>\n
The centenarian is still working full time at Farrey\u2019s, the same place that he\u2019s worked at for over 68 years.<\/p>\n
Smith attributes his longevity in part to a great work environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I did it by not sitting around, being active all my life, and working for good people,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n
On that day, the good people in Smith\u2019s life wanted to make sure that he felt the love.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeautiful, beautiful,\u201d said Smith. \u201cThis is such a surprise that I don\u2019t know what to say, but this is terrific.\u201d<\/p>\n
His three children all still live in Florida, and jumped at the chance to throw him a party that he never expected.<\/p>\n
His son said that what keeps his father going is sheer tenacity. He started work as a carpenter, moved to the warehouse, and continues working a 5 day 40 hour week.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n
\tJoin our Newsletter for the latest news right to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) – A special celebration took place in Fort Lauderdale, as a community gathered to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":{"0":"post-148232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-fort-lauderdale","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}