No detail escaped his attention, from conceiving and building a bell tower as a campus landmark to recruiting his older brother Steve, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist, to "mean up" the school mascot.

He put artificial turf on the football field.

He ran a marathon to raise $50,000 to pay for a new scoreboard and a charter flight to take the football team to a bowl game.

He lured Roger Reid, the former BYU head coach and NBA assistant, to Snow to become the head basketball coach (then this month hired him at SUU).

He brought Elie Wiesel, the writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to speak at the school.

Last month, funding was approved for a new library at Snow — Benson's long-time pet project.

"Not a week went by without him throwing out yet another big idea for Snow," says Rick Pike, who served as development director at Snow. "The trick was to stay focused long enough to get previous ideas accomplished before moving on to new ones."

After only a few weeks under Benson at SUU, Dean O'Driscoll, the school's marketing director, says, "This is going to be an amazing adventure.

"He is so quick to action. One morning we talked about a problem at 8 a.m., by 9 we were working on it, by 2 we were done with it and moving on to something else. There was no sitting around trying to figure out what to do."

Benson's strength, say those who work with him, is his skill with people. Relaxed, humorous and warm, he moves easily in all circles. He counts among his friends Rhodes scholars, college football players and coaches, governors, rabbis, Nobel prize winners, senators and congressmen, philanthropists, LDS Church leaders and, of course, students.

"It isn't fair," says Benson's long-time friend, Danny Humphrey, who proceeds to list Benson's assets — handsome, athletic, a scholar, a 7-handicap golfer, a published author, a dapper dresser, a classical pianist, a man of eclectic interests who can converse on anything from the Utah Jazz to food to the politics of the Middle East.

"And he speaks Italian. And he's nice!" says Humphrey. "C'mon, is that fair? When we're in a social setting, I'll say, 'C'mon, annoy me with your well-roundedness.' He has an amazing presence."

Oh, and he looks about 10 years younger than his 42 years.

You could really learn to hate this guy.

During his first day on the job at Snow College, Benson stood on the sidewalk and handed out doughnuts to students. "Hi, I'm the new president, Mike Benson," he said. Finally, one student looked him up and down and sniffed, "President of what?" One man admitted to Benson, "I thought you were the student body president."