Ben Pickard 

Sandhill Chapter: Trail Maintainer 

Remembering Ben Pickard
by Ed Wolcott

Ben Pickard was a military veteran who became an English professor at  the University of Florida.   The Florida Trail’s Suwannee section was one of his favorite areas, and he was the trail master of it from about 1975 through 1982.   He carried the “1976”  bicentennial Florida Trail staff through the Suwannee Section  after the trail person who volunteered to do this became lost and could not do the job. He and Ray Maxwell pioneered the use of the Suwannee sling.  He was active  until his wife, Suzanne died around 1990, and then he left Gainesville for North Carolina.