1995 Annual Gathering of American Mensa
The 1994 Annual Gathering of American Mensa, Spirit of St. Louis, was held in St. Louis, Missouri at the Adam's Mark Hotel. It lasted from July 5th through July 9th. Barbara Ploegstra (now Barbara Kryvko) was the AG chairman.
The hospitality suite was generally regarded as pretty good this year; it was in a large room with a good view of the famous Gateway Arch, and on the same floor as the other events, and it was reasonably well stocked with hors-d'oevre-style food and a few "feeding frenzies". While this wasn't up to the impossibly high food standard of the 1990 Orange County AG, it was better than some of the others such as 1991 and 1992, which had hospitality suites that were smaller, further from the action, and less stocked with edibles. At least the nonsmoking hospitality was this way; the smoking hospitality was smaller, more remote, and had less to eat. There had been a big power shift over the last few years from smokers to nonsmokers and anti-smokers; not long earlier the common wisdom had always been that it was the smoking hospitality that was more fun to be in, and it attracted many nonsmokers.
A wide range of talks included ones on the history of comic books, humor in music, wordplay, Esperanto, and a proposed private-sector moon base. There was a tour of the St. Louis Zoo, and a casino riverboat dinner cruise. A poker tournament with "funny money" benefitted Mensa Education and Research Foundation.
In some years, the Annual Business Meeting of American Mensa is held on July 4th. It wasn't this time, but there were still some fireworks. This was the last ABM for the outgoing group of officers who were part of Dick Amyx's combined ticket; Amyx was re-elected, but his allies lost their elections, so he faced a potentially hostile AMC. Of the departing officers, Tim Hardy in particular (the treasurer) made use of his report to get in a few parting shots at his political opponents, though he also presented a well-done computerized slide show giving a snapshot of Mensa's financial picture. However, the big event came near the end of the meeting, when Amyx abruptly announced his immediate resignation as chairman of American Mensa, causing Darlene Criss to become chairman for the few minutes remaining before adjournment, and Dave Remine to take over the new two-year term that Amyx had been re-elected into. This move had political ramifications that continued for years, as, for instance, it put Criss onto the American Mensa Hearings Committee as a past chairman, and started Remine's multiple terms as American and then International chairman.
| Preceded by: 1994: Cambridge (with Canada) |
Annual Gathering of American Mensa 1995 |
Succeeded by: 1996: Houston |
