Telephone book-ripping preacher dead at 71

Ed Charon, a retired pastor at Umpqua Trinity Fellowship in Sutherlin, Oregon, collapsed and died following Sunday services on April 8. Charon visited inmates in numerous states, spreading a positive message about making changes in their lives, but became known for ripping apart phone books with his enormous hands (his ring size was 16½). Last September, Charon tore through 56 Portland white directories, each 1,006 pages long, in three minutes, claiming a Guinness World Record for the fifth time. After watching someone ripping phone books while living in Branson, Missouri, in 1998, Charon saw it as a way reach children and prisoners while teaching principles of good behavior. It's estimated Charon ripped 65,000 books (sometimes 100 books a day) to work his way up to the thousand-pagers. He was 71.

Sources: Associated Press, washingtonpost.com