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“We love being a part of our local community,� said Anderson Haughey, owner of eight McDonald’s locations in the Barboursville and Kanawha Valley areas. “Our team and customers look at Lloyd as the patriarch of our breakfast customers who come in regularly.�

On Saturday, when speaking about life at 105 years old, Richmond said it’s important to look for excitement in the world.

“Life has to stay exciting for you. What I do, is I still read a lot, and when my eyes go out of focus, I close the other and read with the one. That’s called ‘I ain’t gonna give up,’� Richmond said. “You have to have something exciting to get your butt outta bed in the mornings. You can’t go just around thinkin’ ‘Oh I gotta do this, I gotta do that.’ This world is exciting.�

Josie Pratt works in human resources for McDonald’s, but from 2017 to 2022, she worked at the location Richmond visits.

“He is such an amazing guy. He has been through so much in his life. … He was raised on a farm, he was born in a tent. He became bedridden for two years in high school and then finished high school, got drafted to World War II. When he returned, his farm was sold, he moved to Huntington, and he just became like a pillar in our community, and he’s been coming here, and everybody really appreciates him and what he stands for. He just shares so much with everyone,� Pratt said.

Richmond was born along the Elk River in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä in 1920 and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, the predecessor to the U.S. Air Force. He served with the 336th Air Service Squadron in Australia, New Guinea, Dutch East Indies and the Phillippines.

For 15 years, Richmond has been a regular customer at the McDonald’s “breakfast club,� a group who get together each morning to eat breakfast and share stories.

Al Rigsby, an area supervisor for McDonald’s, said Richmond is an interesting person.

“I asked him one time, what does he owe his longevity to, and he says he always goes to bed with something exciting to get up and do every day,� Rigsby said — sometimes that’s reading half of a magazine article before bed and finishing it in the morning.