As part of a class I am doing a power point presentation on a persons life. I can pick anyone I want, provided they are dead. I was thinking of doing it on someone from the HEMA/WMA community but I wasn't sure who I could do it on that would meet the criteria (being dead) and also provide enough material for a full presentation (at least a couple minutes).

Any suggestions?

Paul Allen passed away some years ago, you could consider him. He was a professional jouster who sadly died from a lance splinter through his visor while working on a Time Team program. I'm not sure how much information is available on his life or how big a project this is.

I'm sorry Raman but Paul Allen was not a professional jouster. It was very unfortunate what happened to him but he had next to no experience jousting.

How about Edward William Barton-Wright? The developer of Bartitsu. It would also keep people's interest due to the popularity of MMA, and the Sherlock Holmes films.

Barton-Wright is a good one, though the first that came to my mind was Patri Pugliese, for having been instrumental in the early dissemination of historical fencing manuals. He was also a founding member of the Higgins Sword Guild, which ties in with the news that the Higgins Armory Museum will be closing this year.

Alfred Hutton or Egerton Castle? They were two notable figures in the Victorian revival of HEMA.

Unfortunately, WWI killed that revival, but we're back at it now!

Well there is Hank Reinhardt who died in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Reinhardt

Lots of material here for a biography and powerpoint presentation.

http://www.hankreinhardt.com/

I had the pleasure and privilege to have had a few personal e-mail exchanges with Hank a couple of years before he died.

Maybe not quite as far into the HEMA Spectrum as you want but I think Bob Anderson would be a nice subject, you'd certainly find a lot about him and depending on how this class/presentation is supposed to work it might be a good idea to have someone people know a little bit about already rather than try and make them care for a person they have never heard of.
And everyone knows Darth Vader.