(from Charles Dixon - printed in August 1993 East Texas Mensa SpectruM)
It is my sad duty to tell you of the death of Marshall Mensan Stephen Jones. Stephen attended the May Mensa meeting in Palestine with me, and attended whenever he could. He served as Treasurer for our group in 1988-1989. Stephen had poor grades in high school, and never went to college until he took the Mensa test and realized his actual potential. He completed Kilgore College and started on a psychology degree at UT Tyler before a chronic depression problem caused him to drop out. Medication was inadequate, and Stephen committed suicide in June.
Mensa meant a lot to Stephen because we promote study of the brain and how it works, because we encourage better efforts to educate the gifted, because we support students through our scholarship program, and especially because we provide an opportunity to meet other Mensans for discussion. Passing the Mensa test can give anyone an ego boost, but for someone like Stephen, Mensa was one of the few things that made life worth living. I treasure the times we talked -- about everything we had heard or read since the last time we got together. I frequently play tapes he made for me, and try to decide if he was depressed or not when he made the tape, or whether the music might have helped when he was depressed. You probably know someone like Stephen . . . . Encourage them to take the Mensa test, or invite them over for tea and talk.