B.F. McClerren and his wife, Dorothy, will be portraying Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln at 9 a.m. today at the Neal Welcome Center.

McClerren taught at Eastern for 30 years as a history professor and taught the Lincoln Senior Seminar.

“While teaching, you also learn a great deal,” McClerren said.

The more he taught and learned about Lincoln, the more interested he became in him.

As McClerren was preparing to retire, he took Lincoln to the stage in 1991. A few years later his wife joined him as Mary Todd.

In their presentation, they tell stories of childhood, marriage, children, and times of war. McClerren gives different speeches, some of which include the Farewell Address, the House Divided Speech, the first and second Inaugural Addresses, and the Gettysburg Address.

“I am faithful to what Lincoln said,” McClerren said. “I want the audience to hear the heart of Lincoln as he delivered his famous speeches.”

He will start his act on April 14, 1865 and will talk of Lincoln’s young life, the Douglas Debates, and his war years.

“I want the audience to witness the soul of Abraham Lincoln,” McClerren said.

He and his wife have taken their act all over the United States. They perform in schools, churches, and civil war roundtables.

“The audiences are widespread and diversified,” McClerren said.

A different program is performed for each audience. For students, the younger lives of Lincoln and Mary Todd are told more in-depth, while the war years are explained in more detail for the civil war roundtables.

McClerren also participated in the fourth C-Span reenactment of the Lincoln/Douglas Debates in 1994 as Abraham Lincoln.

McClerren said that he might have retired from teaching, but conducting this performance means “the World is my classroom.”

Allen Baharlou, the president of the EIU Annuitants Association, said this is the first time that the McClerren’s will be showing this performance at their meeting and that it is free to the public.

“After just a few minutes, you feel like you are in the presence of Lincoln himself,” Baharlou said. “It is informative, entertaining, educational, and absolutely incredible.”

Ashlei Maltman can be reached at 581-7942 or at anmaltman@eiu.edu.