“If I was to choose now what I am going to do with the rest of my life, I would be in severe trouble because it would consist of sitting on my couch and eating microwave burritos,” wrote Ben Shipley, ‘01, in the March, 2001 Catalyst. “Especially the beef and bean flavor.” On November 13, 2004, after apparently falling from a building in London’s Mayfair District, Shipley was found dead by a security guard, at the age of twenty one.
Being the multi-talented and enthusiastic person that he was, Shipley went on to more ambitious endeavors than beef and beans, and was in London as a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park, on a Study in London program for English, drama, and art history. He was due to return to Maryland at the end of the semester.
Shipley was a culinary student at Carver Center, but also played in several bands (including Hippies Use the Other Door and Spencer), contributed to the Catalyst through writing, cartoons, and photographs, sat comfortably upon the honor roll, and was currently majoring in English at UM. “Though he was an English major, Ben always figured he could work as a chef if he needed a job,” said his mother, Marcia Shipley of Hampton. Principal Joe Freed recalls “great memories of Ben wearing his catering jacket, with a guitar slung over his shoulder.” And former Culinary head, John Johnson remembers Shipley’s “positive attitude and guitar playing in the lobby. He was a true ‘Carver’ student, a great student and a fine young man.”
Shipley’s passion for music was apparent in his Catalyst articles, in which he discussed hip-hop culture, lamented about Napster, or reviewed concerts at York Road’s Recher Theater. “Timberland ‘classic’ boots will transport my body through the treacherous streets of my Towson neighborhood,” joked Shipley in his November 2000 article, A hip-hop makeover: For the modern suburbanite, by the modern suburbanite, before admitting, “My grandma, still to this day, buys half my wardrobe.”
While at Carver, Shipley was vigorously involved in his class. “He wanted to go out of Carver helping people and making a difference,” recounts Michael Hoffman, foreign language teacher. “He was very concerned about his peers. Among other concerns, Shipley was an active member of FBLA (or Future Business Leaders of America); Michael Reinsel, a former Carver business teacher, says, “We had such a great group of business students who graduated that year and Ben fit in with them (as a culinary student) very well.”
Upon graduation, Shipley chose lyrics from “In My Life” by the Beatles to accompany his senior photo. “He even planned to do a Beatles tour of England,” says fellow Carver graduate and longtime girlfriend, Mary Ancel.
“Any student who comes to London is full of energy and has a high degree of initiative and is a self-starter,” notes Dr. Laurie Koehlor, director of UM’s London Program. “Ben was all these.”
Guidance counselor Stephanie Kousoris also attests to his strong personality and personability. “He had what I would characterize as a calming spirit,” she says. “It was very comfortable to be around Ben. He let a lot of things roll off his shoulders. He was full of life.”
Hoffman describes Ben as “kind of disheveled – Birkenstocks winter, spring, summer, or fall. Baggy pants, but not like a yo-boy. Big shirt… He was just an easy-going guy. He was in my Latin I class and would always sit by the radiator because he loved to be warm. He was so nice; I can’t stress it enough – he was just level. He had lots of plans for the future.”
Reinsel adds that “he was gentle, and funny, and a good listener. Ben was a very mature conversationalist for his years, and I greatly enjoyed talking about music with him. I am glad that I was able to know him, albeit for a short time; he added something special to our lives.”
Reinsel attended Shipley’s memorial service on June 9, a testimony to the number of people whose lives he added to. “I have never been at a service where there were so many young people. Perhaps God needed some excellent company because he would surely have it with Ben Shipley!”
Science teacher, Phil Brauer, who also attended the service, says, “I think the most emotional part was when the minister read part of [Ben’s] journal that he had written the week before [his death] – the leaves were just turning in London – about where he wanted to be when he was fifty, about how he wanted to be an art professor.”
Benjamin Shipley may have had an affinity for eating microwavable Mexican cuisine on his couch, but even in the next sentence from (his Catalyst article:) “Why Ben Doesn’t Go to School Anymore,” he writes, “In order to completely access what I want to do with my life I need to experience more of it. I need to travel and discover… I haven’t even been to Wisconsin to sample some of its exquisite cheeses.”