Carl Bennett

Carl’s Bennett’s life was filled with passion and enthusiasm. One of his favorite phrases was “This is really living.”

Carl was born in South Haven, Michigan, on June 3, 1930, to Paul and Florence (Hall) Bennett. He often said that growing up within blocks of Lake Michigan, where he swam and fished and worked as a life guard, made for the best childhood imaginable. His oft-told stories included tales of working in the bathhouses of South Haven, and he did odd jobs at the South Haven newspaper, which foreshadowed his ultimate career. In high school in South Haven, Carl played football under Coach Tom Slaughter (who would later coach at Western Michigan University), and all his life, Carl credited Coach Slaughter with convincing him never to smoke.

After his sophomore year, Carl’s mother, remarried to Ward Carter, moved to Hillsdale, where Carl continued to play football and to hold jobs, including an early morning milk route. His love of motorcycles started around then, with an Indian cycle, the sale of which he would still be regretting 60 years later.

After graduating in 1948, Carl enlisted in the U. S. Navy, where he continued to play football for the Naval Base Blue Jackets, and then served aboard the USS Duxbury Bay. He traveled – courtesy of the Navy – to the Middle East and Europe.

Four years later, Carl returned to Hillsdale, where he worked in a factory and married Mary Spinne in 1952.

Laid off from his factory job, Carl went to the unemployment office and said he wanted to be a truck driver. He was told that there were no truck driving jobs, but that there was an opening for a reporter at the Hillsdale Daily News, if he would settle for that.

He did settle for it and, unable to read his own handwritten notes for stories, soon switched to taking pictures for the paper.

Children Michael and Michele were born in Hillsdale, and Carl spent the next few years getting on-the-job training in press photography and fatherhood. In 1956, Carl and his family moved to Kalamazoo, where he started working in the photo department of the Kalamazoo Gazette. Carl’s third child, Erin, was born in 1957.

Carl’s career with the Gazette spanned 51 years, including 34 years of active service, and then post-retirement free-lancing, which continued until just months before his death. His long career gave him the opportunity to shoot dozens of celebrities, presidential candidates and even a Pope, and to win numerous prizes and awards for his pictures. Though, as a press photographer, he shot every kind of news picture, from sports to fires to meetings, his true passion was for nature photography. Carl stated that he felt closest to God when he was outdoors, taking pictures.

In 1972, Carl married Kaye (on June 3, which he would always refer to as his “birthdaversary”), and in 1989, Carl and Kaye adopted Rachelle.

As much as he enjoyed his job, Carl Bennett would not be accused of being a workaholic. There was never a time in his life when he was not avidly pursuing at least two or three sports. Through the years, he was a hunter (both gun and bow and arrow), a canoeist and whitewater kayaker (he was a charter member of the Kalamazoo Downstreamers Canoe Club). He cross- country skied when it was still rare in this area, and, once he discovered windsurfing – in the late 1970s – he pursued that with gusto. Throughout the last four decades or so of his life, he also played tennis, confounding opponents with his left-handed serve.

Carl constantly used his photographic skill to benefit his community, documenting the activities in and around Vicksburg. A member of the Vicksburg Rotary Club and Vicksburg United Methodist Church, he participated in youth mentoring programs sponsored by both those organizations. He gave dozens of programs and his work was shown in many exhibits through the years. Despite the recurrence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in late 2006, Carl was able, with the help of golf carts and good friends, to take photos of this year’s Hearty Hustle and Old Car Fest.

Carl died at age 77 on Saturday, September 15, 2007, at Rose Arbor Hospice. Learn more about Carl, view his life story films and visit with his family and friends on Wednesday, September 19, from 2 to 4 p.m., and 6 to 8 p.m., at the Life Story Funeral Home, RDMG,

409 S. Main Street in Vicksburg. Funeral services will be held on Thursday, September 20, at 11 a.m., at the Vicksburg United Methodist Church.

Members of Carl’s family include his wife, the former Kaye Price Payne; children Michael (Susan) Bennett; Erin (Jack) Hoogendyk; Michele (Paul) Dobson; Rachelle Bennett; a step-sister, Charlotte (Roger) Erickson; half-sisters, Catherine Burkhardt and Marcia Ambs; 12 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren; and several nieces, nephews and cousins. Carl was preceded in death by his parents; his brother Roswell Bennett; and a step-sister, Shirley Sterkenburg. Please visit Carl’s memory page at www.lifestorynet.com, where you may share a favorite memory or photo with his family or sign his online guest book before coming to the funeral home. Memorial contributions may be made to the Rose Arbor Hospice or Vicksburg Community Schools Foundation.