I joined the church when Ezra Taft Benson was the prophet. I went off to BYU a year after I joined, and my first semester there he came to the Marriott Center to speak. The spirit was so strong and overpowering, especially when we sang with flowing tears, "We thank thee Oh God For a Prophet." I learned a lot about him after that, and he truly lived a life of righteousness and service. I hope you are moved by the story of his life, like I am (link below). It is really interesting to note what his chores were at age 5, and they really set him up for one of the passions he would have for the rest of his life; that of agriculture. He served for the government as well as the church, and I think his influence reached beyond the members of the church.
I think Ezra Taft Benson is one of those people you cannot forget easily. Not only because of the impact he gave towards the Book of Mormon but also because of the controversy regards to his grand-son Steve and his views about Communism.
FBI files shed light on Ezra Taft Benson, Ike and the Birch Society
Benson - the only man to serve in a presidential Cabinet and later lead a worldwide church, the Mormons - was attempting to convince Hoover that the John Birch Society was a clear-thinking anti-communist group. So he wrote how it had convinced him that a friend of theirs had been a tool of the worldwide communist conspiracy. Ref. Source 4
Ezra Taft Benson (Hover)