By TRICIA NEAL, Staff Writer
Somerset — He’s tall and slender, face slightly aged, with windswept dark hair and a short, bushy beard.
Whether he’s strolling the streets in his suit and tie or strolling the cereal aisle in his sweatpants and T-shirt, he catches the eye of old and young alike — and they all seem to ask him the same thing:
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like Abraham Lincoln?”
Dennis Boggs does look remarkably like the 16th President, but it’s no coincidence. He’s made a career out of looking and acting like Honest Abe as one of about 181 “Lincoln presenters” in the world.
“It helps that I’m married to a hairstylist and makeup artist,” Boggs admits.
The Nashville native spent most of this week in Pulaski County, speaking to several groups — not just about his life and his role in the Civil War, but about the importance of education, the dangers of guns, and the end of racism.
“My war and every war since then has been fought with way too many guns,” Boggs, as Lincoln, said to a group of Northern Middle School students Thursday.
“Now we must fight wars with knowledge, and knowledge comes from education.”
Boggs has intently studied Abraham Lincoln’s 56 years, from his humble birth in Kentucky to his early years in Illinois, from his stint as an attorney to his election to the highest office in the United States — to his assassination in Ford’s Theater just five days after the Civil War had ended. He can not only give a detailed monologue-style presentation of Lincoln’s life, including a word-by-word rendition of the Gettysburg Address, but he can also answer most of his listeners’ questions without hesitation.
“How did your face end up on the penny? ... Why did John Wilkes Booth shoot you? ... How old were you when you got married? ... What happened to your wife after you died? ... What size shoe do you wear? ... Why did you always wear black?”
“Being a Lincoln presenter is very rewarding,” Boggs later explained, “but it also comes with much responsibility. When people see me, they don’t see Dennis Boggs. They see Abraham Lincoln, and they will almost inevitably ask me questions. That means I need to do my homework. I’ve been studying Lincoln’s life for 15 years, but there is still so much to know.”
Boggs says he occasionally gets asked a question to which he doesn’t know the answer. Like Lincoln himself, Boggs has to give an “honest” answer.
“I tell them I don’t know,” he said.
“But that will be the first thing that I look up when I get home.”
While Boggs’ imitation of the former President is convincing, he plans to never let it go to his head.
“People sometimes ask me if I ever find myself thinking that I actually am Abraham Lincoln,” Boggs said.
“I hope not. If I ever start to feel that way, my ego has gotten out of hand.”
Boggs tailors his presentations to suit age groups from preschool to adult.
“I’ll talk to any group that needs a speaker who is just a little out of the ordinary,” he said.
“You never know where I’ll be.”
During his visit here this week, Boggs not only spoke to several Somerset and Pulaski County school students, but also to residents in a nursing home, and, naturally, to members of the Lincoln Club.
More about Dennis Boggs can be seen online at: www.meetmrlincoln.com.
