Candace Renee Benefiel is remembered by family and friends as a loving, selfless and caring person. Her passion for movies and helping others is what she was loved for the most.
Renee Kelley, Candace’s niece, said Candace had a deep passion for learning and loved sharing it with those around her, some of which were the thousands of students that walked the halls of Evans Library.
“She’s probably one of the most interesting people you could know,” Renee said. “She thoroughly enjoyed learning and sharing what she learned … She was a librarian but not what you think of with a usual librarian.”
Renee said one of Candace’s favorite pastimes was to watch movies. Not only did she watch them, but she could name various facts about most of the movies she had seen.
“She loved movies, you could pretty much say any movie and she would know what year it was made and who was in it,” Renee said. “She was kind of the family movie critic so if there was a movie you wanted to see she you would call her first and ask: ‘Well what did you think about it?’”
One of Candace’s biggest passions was vampires, from movies to books and even TV shows. Renee said Candace was very involved in a group of fans from a popular TV show called “Moonlight,” so much that she traveled around the country meeting other fans and building lasting relationships.
“She was very involved in it,” Renee said. “We would go and meet these people all over the United States and made really good friendships. She had more friends than I could’ve ever imagined.”
Pixie Mosley, close friend and coworker of Candace’s at Evans library, said she will be remembered as someone who was always ready to help, especially when it came to helping Aggies.
“She was really really engaged in a lot of service to the campus,” Pixie said. “She always had a really great sense of humor on things and she always wanted to be helping people. She was a frequent member of our committee on appointment, promotion and tenure. She served for years on the Aggie Honor Council.”