Mathes Story

The James Madison Award was presented to the Rev. Dr. Ben C. Mathes on Friday, April 20, 2007 at the annual Wilson Center banquet. Rev. Dr. Mathes, known to his H-SC friends as "Ben", obtained his B.A. from Rhodes College, his Masters of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary, and his Doctor of Divinity from Washington College Academy. Hampden-Sydney bestowed upon him the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in May of 1999.

Ben is President of "Rivers of the World," an international exploration and development agency that targets remote river basins. Since 1978, he has traveled the world on behalf of international health development, explorations and Christian missions. He has worked extensively in the Congo, Kenya, Cameroon, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, El Salvador, Brazil, Belize, Ecuador, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. His organization has completed new medical ships; the first, in the Congo, serves 150,000 people. The second, in Brazil, serves, on average, 27 villages along the Amazon River per year, and has treated over 1 million cases of river blindness and immunized over 500,00 children against polio, all while spreading the Gospel. Ben also personally reaches over 3 million listeners with his twice-daily radio broadcasts. In addition to the Congo and Brazil, the "Rivers of the World" Organization actively ministers in Kenya, Vietnam, Peru Belize, Honduras and Bolivia.

Ben has had a very positive relationship with Hampden-Sydney College for some time now. The H-SC dean of students, David Klein knows Ben well, and sums him up this way, "Ben is a man of passion. He is a man of action, not wanting to waste time with bureaucracy. He cares deeply for the disenfranchised and is impatient with apathy. He can live on a sand bar in deepest Africa and bathe in the river, and he can don tails and wow a crusty crowd.

In the past several years, groups of Hampden-Sydney students, sometimes assisted by alumni, have traveled to Honduras and Belize, in conjunction with "Rivers of the World." These students, most of who are affiliated with the Society of '91, have chosen to do this during school breaks rather than head back to their homes or off to a beach for some R & R. Instead, they have assisted in the creation of medical clinics, churches, and other projects, as well as providing intangible assistance and good will. Without exception, these trips have benefited both the people of the countries and the students as well.

Hampden-Sydney College presented a Madison Award to the Rev. Dr. Ben C. Mathes, in recognition of his extraordinary humanitarian work in some of the most distressed areas of the world.

H-SC President Dr. Walter M. Bortz III and Wilson Center Director Dr. David Marion stand with the Rev. Dr. Ben C. Mathes.