Denny's Destiny: Change Agent

By Dennis M. Benson

This is the story about the experiences of one mans life, careers and involvements with people and organizations in the United States and other parts of the world. The results have changed individuals lives and organizations means for providing services to people. The story tells of his adventuresome, humanistic, and sometimes humorous involvements in his life through traveling, music, and professional leadership with people and organizations.
Dr. Oo from Burma spoke to Denny and called him a change agent. The work he had accomplished would change the engineering education system for the third world developing country in years to come. However, Denny should not expect to see or hear of any changes for several years because the changes would not happen very quickly. Again he said You have been and are a Change Agent. Denny knew a light bulb had just clicked on inside his mind as he realized a total stranger from half way around the world just explained what his mission was all about and what his mission in life was to become. He then turned and asked his wife, Where is Burma?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465386618

Dennis M. Benson

Dennis M. Benson is a native of Indiana and educated at Ball State University with Bachelor, Master and Doctoral degrees in education and business management. Dennis has traveled to all fifty of the United States of America, five continents, and seventeen countries. He also has literally and figuratively circumvented the entire planet earth. As an educator, administrator, association executive and business owner, he experienced the highs of success and the lows of failure in his careers and life’s experiences. It is in this book he tells the story and provides a Life’s Destiny Guide for the readers to learn ways to fulfill their God given purpose and talents to fulfill their own personal goals and their own destiny. Denny has been a change agent throughout his life.

Book preview

CALEB’S PRAYER

Make me a leader among your people.

Make me willing to stand for truth, even when outnumbered.

Grant me a courageous confidence in you and your promises.

Help me refuse to see life through the eyes of men.

Cause me to grieve for the sins of my followers and intercede for them.

Teach me to know your presence which brings boldness and direction.

Place within me a different spirit.

Keep me from being fearful of the giants in my way.

Cultivate within me a fresher and fresher faith as I grow older.

Give me the guts to pray…Give me the land or Give me the high ground.

This prayer is based on the biblical character Caleb and his experiences as a faithful and courageous servant of God.

Footnote reference: Pastor Gregg Parris,

Union Chapel Ministries

Muncie, Indiana

The Foundation

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the stream rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

—Matthew 7:24–25

DENNY

It all started late in the fall of the year 2010 when messages started coming to him from several sources to pick up the pen or, in a more current fashion, get on the computer and tell the story of a good friend, a very close friend of his. He has had many experiences in his life, careers, and relationships with people that have been both successful and rewarding at times as well as failures and disappointments causing despair and grief throughout his life. He had been requested time and time again to write and tell his story, but getting him to sit down and write had been a challenge to his motivation to fulfill the task. Therefore, he has agreed to tell me the stories, and I will put them onto the pages to share with you. It is his desire that you will learn from these experiences of his and gain a better understanding of who he is and what he did, and it also may help you gain an insight on how you can plan and prepare for your destiny in life.

Let me tell you about the rise and fall of a man named Denny. Denny was born into this world during the mid-twentieth century and named Dennis, but he was always called Denny by his parents. His parents, Joseph McLean and Naomi Benson—better known as Mac and Peg—were both educated with degrees in education and his father served as a school administrator and his mother was an elementary teacher in several small communities in the Midwest state of Indiana. They were both active in local church and community events and participated in all the small town functions such as church socials, school programs, and community service projects. Denny had a younger sister, Rebecca, who was called Becky. They were the only children that Mac and Peg had in their family.

Denny and Becky would annually spend a week out on Grandpa Benson’s farm while their parents would help sponsor the graduating seniors on a tour to Washington, DC, and New York City. These graduates were from the school where Mac was the principal.

Life on the farm was considerably different for Denny and Becky because the farm had no electricity or plumbing. Oil lamps would be lit to illuminate the rooms of the house when the sun set each day. Since there was no plumbing in the farm, water would be pumped from a hand pump at an outdoor well, and the bathroom facility was an outhouse located in a pasture behind the farmhouse. Their grandfather would use two large workhorses to till the farmland by walking behind the horses and guiding a steel-forged plow to till the fields. Edwin Benson, their grandfather, was also well-known in the central Indiana area for his prize Duroc. He knew all of them by name and the dates of their birth. The annual week’s visitation for Denny and Becky was spent chasing chickens to collect eggs, milking cows, and riding in the wagon pulled by the two workhorses. At night, with only the oil lamps flickering spooky shadows on the walls and the wind causing many strange creaky sounds throughout the house, it was difficult for the two of them to get to sleep. There was no TV, and the only radio was a battery type that only Grandpa Benson could listen to in the evening hours. The house was heated by a wood-and-coal potbellied stove that was located in the center of the house.

Home life in the small town was much different from the farm visits. Mac and Peg owned a modest home with all the normal amenities like electrical features for TV, lighting, and appliances for cleaning clothes. They also had typical plumbing for the bathroom and a kitchen with hot and cold water. They heated the house with a large coal-stoker furnace in the basement

Denny was taught from an early age to serve others by participating in church, school, and community activities; he was included in many of their family endeavors. His parents included and involved him in these things in order to teach him the ways and purpose of life as they believed being Christian parents. It was often said by other people in the town that if there was an event going on in town, the Bensons would be there to help.

He became active in the church youth fellowship programs, Little League, and musical groups early in life. All these activities served as training, conditioning, and preparation for his life as an adult in later years although at that time he was unaware of it and did not realize what this all meant or how it would be the basis of his destiny in life.

His first experience in public speaking came at a time when his mother said she was ill and would be unable to speak in front of the church congregation one Sunday. She requested him to present her talk for her. The topic to present was about a change in direction the local church needed to take in order to face issues for their survival in the community. She had a script prepared, and all he had to do was deliver the message. He practiced it several times, and then on Sunday morning, he was introduced to the congregation. He walked to the lectern and presented the talk. Nerves were excited, and he perspired from the moment he started the talk, but he gained his confidence as he progressed through the prepared materials and delivered the message to the audience seated in front of him. It was during his delivery of the talk that he noticed that standing at the back of the church and listening to his presentation was his ill mother with a smile on her face. She knew what she was doing and had planned her illness in order to help prepare him for a future of being in front of audiences and presenting many topics on change for people and organizations throughout his life.

Denny’s competitive spirit was developed and refined through his participation in Little League and later in PONY baseball league. He also became a competitor in track by running the high and low hurdles and in pole vaulting to record achievements during his high school years.

During his senior year in high school, he became involved musically with a group that grew in popularity with their singing and performances throughout the local region. They performed in many community fairs, festivals, and events through talent shows and won in virtually all they competed in. The Star Lites became a regional musical hit group, and their popularity grew into one that was most impressive throughout the local community and regional counties. His participation in the Star Lites was just the first of many future opportunities he would experience in musical performances with personal rewards. Being a star was definitely a motivating attribute for him who sought and grew to enjoy the rewards of being in front of audiences and performing in the art of musical performances.

He played a trumpet in the high school band for concerts, ball games, and parades in town. He remembered that one year the band placed sixteenth in the state at the Indiana State Fair by forming a large cross as they marched past the grandstands and played Onward, Christian Soldiers.

However, his most significant role in his development was his participation and leadership in a variety of positions for the youth fellowship organization at his church. Denny became a leader in the local youth fellowship group of his church, and that quickly led to becoming a leader in the district youth fellowship organization. He took on roles and responsibilities to lead youth fellowship groups on projects of service to communities, music as a form of worship, and activities for the youth to develop a life from their belief in God.

After high school and after a breakup with his high school sweetheart, he ventured out on his own and joined the local summer musical production company and performed in eight musical productions at the community civic theater and summer stock productions in the park. These became experiences that would lead to future ambitions in his musical life.

Music, church activities, and leadership roles continued on when he went off to college where he became active with campus youth fellowship groups at the church he attended while in college. He became and pursued his role as a leader and frequently spoke to college-age students about serving on projects, participating in music worship, and also becoming servants for others in their need to better their lives and environments while being in college. He sang weekly in the church choir worship services as well as in the college glee club, choral groups, and the men’s glee chorus. Music played an important role in his life’s activities. He accepted every opportunity to sing in groups and now and then accepted the opportunity to do a solo or be the featured singer in special productions. He performed with the Miami University Chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony performing Judas Maccabaeus.

During his college years at Ball State University (BSU), Denny pledged to a local fraternity in the organization’s second year of existence on the campus. Sigma Delta was sponsored by the national fraternity Sigma Chi. The week following his graduation from BSU, Sigma Delta members were initiated into Sigma Chi fraternity as the Epsilon Omega chapter, and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona served as the installation speaker. Soon after completing his degree, Denny became a Life Loyal Sig because, unlike many other fraternities, once a Sig, always a Sig.

Everyone in life needs a strong foundation, and Denny’s parents prepared him in many ways to go out on his own and become a person who would be able to achieve, be successful, and contribute professionally in work and to his communities. So this is the foundation and background for the destinies he would experience in life. He had been brought up in a Christian family with the understanding about the importance of church participation and being responsible for the community in which he lived through service in community projects. He would serve and assume the responsibility of leadership in many of these activities. This was accomplished through his God-given talents and family-taught values about the roles and responsibilities of leading others. Whatever the future would bring, these attributes would become factors that would always be a part of Denny’s destiny. He would do well, and he would fail, but these are the factors that would be part of his journey for the rest of his life. These were the foundations for Denny’s destiny.

Now through a series of his life’s personal events, I will tell you the story of the experiences that has created the results of Denny’s destiny: change agent.

The Rise

Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us the ways, so that we may walk in his paths.

—Micah 4:2

TEACHING

When Denny entered college, he chose a career path to become an architect; however, he was not prepared for the mathematical requirements and the courses required for this profession from his small high school educational preparations. Although he had taken all the math courses the school provided, it was not sufficient to meet the needs for the architecture program. The result of this caused him to transfer from Miami University in Ohio after his freshman year of college and enroll at Ball State Teachers College—known for its preparation of teachers. He pursued a career in education to become an industrial education teacher and would specialize in teaching drafting, architecture, and engineering. He excelled in the drafting courses and enrolled in all the classes providing him the education to learn how to draw and design architecture and engineering projects.

As he neared the end of his college education, the curriculum required him to experience teaching. He would participate in an actual classroom for a time, referred to as student teaching. This was performed in a school in the northern part of the state. His assignment was to teach both drafting classes and a variety of shop classes at the high school level. Pop, as he was warmly known, was his mentor for this experience. Pop was a drafting teacher nearing retirement and quickly became Denny’s idol in teaching. In fact, the thought was formed in his mind during this student teaching experience that Pop’s style of teaching and the way he conducted his classes would become his career goal someday.

Denny met during his college years another singer and student of early childhood education. They dated and became married during the final semester of their senior year. After graduation, they accepted teaching positions in a small community on the eastern plains of Colorado. The mountains were quite visible on clear days, and the two would spend many weekends exploring many parks and recreation areas during their two-year stay in the state.

Denny was involved in teaching shop and drafting classes while his wife, Carol, taught kindergarten across the street from the high school. One time, Carol invited Denny to visit her class and teach the students about using tools. In his demonstration of how to use a hammer, he asked the students a question that was answered by the one student who had a severe speech impediment. Denny had no idea what the answer had been, but he quickly agreed and then responded with the actual answer so