Brandon James Benson was born October 6, 1978 in Marshalltown, Iowa. He grew up on in a farming family outside of State Center, Iowa.
Brandon had modest early beginnings. He can still remember a winter where the pipes froze and having to take evening baths at his grandparents home. Family was always important and he had many cousins to play with. An early family vacation through the western states spun an early intrest in American history. His Grandmother also bought a three corner hat from Mount Vernon – Brandon loved to wear this hat and pretend he was George Washington.
Brandon was always imaginitve and credits his mother to helping develop his creativity. He disliked school early on – feeling too confined and had an unfortunate incident with a 1st grade teacher. The story goes that Brandon missed a week of school due to an asthma attack. During this time the class began to learn adding and subtracting. When Brandon returned to class apparently the teacher had forgotten he was gone all those days. She wrote 3+3 on the board and called on him to answer – which he could not. She even got upset! The rest of the class of course laughed. While funny now, the moment caused him to hate school and much inner confusion. At the time he didn’t realize he didn’t learn something, but rather was unable to figure out something that the other children had “automatically” known. How it was possible to pass two full grades without knowing basic math, Brandon is unsure of. (And today remains a critic of public education) But in 3rd grade he remembers the day he actually figured out math on his own.
Childhood activities included baseball, 4H, and “helping” on both sets of grandparents farms. Through 4H and later in FFA Brandon developed leadership skills. In 4H he won many livestock shows with Gelbvieh cattle. In FFA he was awarded the Star Chapter Agribusinessman Award in his senior year of high school.
During a 1980 campaign stop in Marshalltown then candidate Ronald Reagan posed for a photo opt with young Brandon. Unfortunately the picture did not turn out. Reagan recieved word of this and wrote the family a letter and sent Brandon an autographed picture – both keepsakes are kept on Brandon’s wall today.
The brushes with fame and politics did not stop there. It was the early days of the “Internet”, not really called that in those days. Brandon’s family was connected to early online world via the Prodigy service. Brandon took part in political discussions on message boards. One particular board he encountered a broadcast engineer for the Rush Limbaugh program. Brandon didn’t believe the guy and issued a challenge. The next day, on October 6th, 1992 Rush Limbaugh proved who his coworker was by wishing Brandon a Happy 14th Birthday during his national radio program.
After high school Brandon was unsure of what he wanted to do and took an unconventional approach to early adulthood. Rather than wasting money and time going to college taking courses he was unsure about, he went straight to work at a local seed corn plant – stacking seed corn bags up to 70 pounds, for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week during harvest season. During this time he also worked at a local country radio station. Eventually he left both jobs for a higher paying job at a window factory. After a few years he enrolled at Marshalltown Community College in the Broadcast Technology program and went back to work at the radio station. After completing his associates degree he went into business, 6 years on his own doing web design and videography.
Also from 2000 to 2007 Brandon worked for NewsMax.com as the Late Night Jokes updater. This came about much the same way his experience with Rush Limbaugh came about – chance communication. While writing a college paper and listening to Limbaugh he heard an advertisement for NewsMax. Brandon checked the site out and liked it so much he sent site editor Chris Ruddy the paper he was working on for some pointers. The next day he was offered a job. During his time with NewsMax he once again jumped into the world of politics, and especially online journalism.
In the early 2000’s Brandon along with a group of friends developed a local and statewide croquet competition organization – The Iowa Backyard Croquet Federation. The group won the state championship 3 years in a row. While they don’t play as much anymore, they still do time to time and are now setting up tournaments at wineries in Iowa and Nebraska. www.iowacroquet.com
In 2006 Brandon decided to go back to school, this time at Nebraska Christian College in Omaha, Nebraska. He originally planned to major in Christian Education, but on arrivial he met Dr. Bob Milliken and decided to change majors to Christian Thought and Humanities to focus on writing, literature and the arts. Unfortunately finances became an issue and he had to leave school to work fulltime once again.
Brandon is currently employed by American Courier Corp of Lincoln, Nebraska as Operations Coordinator. He oversees a small group of delivery drivers in the Omaha area. Brandon is now working on this web site and other writing and multimedia projects. In August of 2009 he married Kimberly Gaebel. In May of 2009 they bought a house in Louisville, Nebraska and now reside there, close to Kimberly’s childhood home and her family’s farm. Kimberly works in childcare management. They attend a local Lutheran Missouri Synod Church. They enjoy cooking, grilling, wine tasting, travel, music, movies, board games, being with family, watching the Chicago Cubs, Iowa State Cyclones and Nebraska Cornhuskers.
