LITTLE ROCK – Ben Batten belies the upper Midwest background that directed him on the path of outdoors and conservation work some 18 years ago. Rather, even with less of a Southern twang than most of his fellow Arkansas Game and Fish Commission employees possess, one still might mistake him for a native Arkansan in the way he seems to know every nook and cranny of this state, every fish in its waters, or the best spots to find deer, ducks and other “critters,” as he calls them.