Benn Taylor

Ben Taylor

Bethel and Hartford, ME - Ben Taylor of Bethel and Hartford, Maine, was pronounced dead on the mountain on the double black diamond trail "Black Hole" as a result of injuries sustained while skiing at Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, Maine, on March 25, 2015. Ben was an expert level skier and an employee of the resort since 2012 in the retail, rental and marketing and sales departments.

Born in Philadelphia on August 1, 1979, Ben grew up in Pawling, New York, on the campus of the Trinity-Pawling School, a boarding school where his parents lived and worked. He spent his summers at the family camp on Canton Lake developing a love of the outdoors, hiking and canoeing as well as playing baseball on all levels for local Maine teams: Canton Little League, Northern Voyagers American Legion (Rumford), and the Pine Tree League team of the "Westies" of West Paris. Summer 2014 saw him help the softball team sponsored by LaFleur's Restaurant of Jay, Maine, win the championship.

Ben was a standout scholar-athlete at Trinity-Pawling School in Pawling, NY, graduating cum laude in 1998. He earned academic honors, was a member of championship basketball teams, and received individual honors as a baseball player.

He attended the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, majoring in Psychology and receiving his B.S. degree in 2002. Ben, as a starting player on the baseball team was a multi-talented player and saw time in the outfield and all positions in the infield before settling in as a first baseman. During Ben's tenure at Hopkins, the team won two Centennial Conference championships and received an invitation to the NCAA Division III post season baseball tournament in 2001 and 2002.

After graduating from college, Ben worked at the University of Cincinnati Institute of Research and for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before entering a lifelong career in golf management and teaching. After working several years in Metro D.C., he settled in Maine in 2012 working first as a golf instructor at Camp Skylemar in Naples, Maine. In Fall 2012 he was employed by Harris Golf at Sunday River Golf Club in Newry, Maine becoming Assistant General Manager in 2013 and then being promoted to take the reins as General Manager and Golf Professional at Wilson Lake Country Club in Wilton, Maine in 2014. Ben will be remembered as an outgoing, thoughtful, compassionate person and a loving uncle. He looked for the best in others and gave the best he had whether he was teaching a novice golfer, playing baseball or softball, or fitting a skier with the right equipment.

He is survived by his mother and father John and Margaret Taylor of Hartford and his brother William Taylor of Pawling New York. A private memorial service is planned. The family may be reached at taylormargaret74@gmail.com