Name: If This Desirable Station Could Talk
Start: 2026-04-14T18:30:00-04:00
Location: First Congregational Church UCC, St. Joseph

The talk will focus on Civil War stories from soldiers that served at Fort Mackinac. Attendees will be surprised to hear and learn about the numerous soldiers that served at Fort Mackinac that were also involved in some of the biggest and bloodiest battles of the war.
Ben completed a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education & History at WMU in 2004 and a master’s degree in educational leadership for WMU in 2009. During college and in his early career as a teacher Ben worked as a seasonal Historic Interpreter with the Mackinac State Historic Parks at Fort Mackinac for 7 summers. Ben was a middle school History Teacher for 10 years, a middle school Assistant Principal for 5 years and is currently the Assistant Principal at the Allegan Tech Center for the past 5 years. Ben’s interest in the American Civil War grew out of watching Hollywood movies and reading Civil War books at his school library. Ben has fond memories of watching the Blue & Gray miniseries on a 19” Black & White TV in the mid-1980s. Ben pestered his mom at a Meijer grocery store in 1988 to purchase a VHS tape called “The Last Full Measure”, which was about Gettysburg. In 1989 Ben made his first trip to Gettysburg and has been hooked on anything and everything related to The Civil War. Ben started dragging his parents to Civil War reenactments in 1990 and always wanted to be a reenactor! Ben has been a Civil War reenactor since 2009. He is an active collector of Civil War artifacts with a focus on medical instruments and prosthetics. Ben has had the opportunity to do presentations at historical societies, roundtables, reenactments, Fort Wilkins, Fort Mackinac, Gettysburg, Antietam, and Appomattox Courthouse. Ben spends his time attending reenactments, Civil War Battlefields, historic sites, museums, volunteering with the Boy Scouts of America and working on his family’s Dairy Farm.