ABOUT THE ARTIST
After an incredible lifetime of international heterocentric illnesses, accidents, adventures, and good fortune, Ben has been paralleled in the media with such personalities as: Charles Lindbergh, Evel Knievel, Jane Austin, Forrest Gump and Don Quixote. In all humility, for a deeper insight of the aforementioned you may Google - Otok Ben Hvar. Thank you.
Ben was an active high school gymnast prior to taking residence in New York City to study classical dance at the Metropolitan Opera School of Ballet, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and Ballet Theater. Two years later he was accepted as a dance department student at the Juilliard School of Music. A foot injury while serving in the U.S. Army Reserve curtailed his dancing career. Ben and his Juilliard roommate Stanley Friedberg created the Fifth Avenue Opera Association, introducing opera to disadvantaged children and underwritten by the Health, Education and Welfare Dept., Title VI.
In an effort to stregthen his injured foot Ben turned to ice skating where overnight he mastered trick and daredevil skating, including twirling blazing batons and jumping through hoops of fire. With his ballet background he became an instant success dazzling audiences with his novelty dance skating abilities and his unique method of introducing ice skating to the blind. He was a pioneer in the 1950's as an ice skating Santa arriving to greet cheering children on the ice via helicopter. Soon Ben was an ice skating instructor on the ice at the Rockefeller Ice Skate Pond and Madison Square Garden Ice Rink; New York City.
Ben was thrust into the international limelight in 1969, when he attempted to fly from New York to London in a plane a quarter the size of Lindbergh's Spirt of St. Louis. His plane was short on fuel for the last 99 miles of the trip. He crash landed capturing full front-page headlines and peak TV spots. Ben became an instant celebrity, the featured personality in a book The Great Atlantic Air Race and the highlight of a BBC Race You to the Top documentary.
The following year, using a motorized riding lawnmower as a theme to trim the war, he collected 1.2 million signatures honoring America's fighting men and women in Southeast Asia. President Nixon invited Ben to the White House Rose Garden, for a personal reception in Ben's honor.
After 10 years as an non-commissioned reserve infantry soldier, age 34, Ben enlisted in the active U.S. Army and at 35 volunteered for Airborne (paratrooper) training at Fort Benning, GA. As a precursor to helicopter pilot training he was assigned as a crew chief on a UH-1 helicopter. On his off time he wrote news articles and stories about his fellow troopers. He won many accolades and awards including a George Washington Freedom Foundation Award. Special field grade Pentagon officials appointed Ben a military photo/journalist. A short time later a faulty parachute mishap forced his medical retirement from the Army.
It's 1977, undaunted, Ben finds himself in the Soviet Union writing and designing one of the 1980 Olympic medallions and initiating his (107th Congressional Record) "America's Santa to the World" role. He was inundated by Soviet officials to encourage President Carter to have American athletes compete in the boycotted 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow. Ben had no legal or official authority to meet with President Carter and America did not participate in the 1980 Olympic Games.
For the next decade, Ben continued his work mostly throughout Eastern Europe with brief encounters in Southeast Asia, China and beyond. After Marshall Tito's death, Ben sailed the clear cobalt waters of the Adriatic Sea when, by chance, he, in the midst of a mad world found a God-made refuge known as Island Hvar. Ten years later the Balkan War erupted. Ben joined the Croatian forces, dons a military uniform and again serves as an American Goodwill Ambassador. This time, in his Santa outfit, he serves on the front lines of battle dodging gunfire while distributing toys to children.
February 1, 1995, hospitalized, suffering from ebbing health, tortured with a myriad of fears and surrounded by a roomfull of friends Ben (documented) suffers a fatal attack and dies. August 8, 1995 in an official Island Hvar proclamation ceremony Ben becomes the first American ever to receive Honorary Island Hvar Croatian Citizenship and place of burial among the child victims of the Balkan War. As a result of the burial suggestion Ben writes each governor of everey U.S. state, territory, commonwealth and the Mayor of Washington, D.C. seeking a pound of their native soil for his patriotic bedding should he be buried overseas.
Each of the 55 governors and the Mayor of Washington, D.C. sent a pound of soil their native soil. Ben containerized the 56 variant soils and planted a backyeard maple seed. It grew into a beautiful silver maple tree and visited each place from whence the soil came; traveling more than 205,500 miles as of July 2009; where she was planted for the winter in Dover, New Hampshire. Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire introduced our Tree to Congress and calling it "America's First National Tree" and asked President Bush to permanently plant our Tree on the White House lawn.
For seven years Ben has been desperately trying to get President Bush's attention to plant our tree on the White House lawn. All to no avail. Ben a New Jersey native and graduate of Thomas Edison State College has called upon the New Jersey Governor to use his influence to help plant our tree on the White House lawn. Again, to no avail. As president of the Alpha Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of the international academic honor society Phi Theta Kappa Ben has called for national assistance in getting our tree more recognized and planted on the White House lawn.
In the midst of Ben's overwhelming volume of school studies, art work, painting and commitments of every sort he continues laboring unceasingly to accomplish "the improbable which is possible and the impossible is certain" (Dr. Ivan B. Prince).
