Meeting of the minds

Mensa members season down-home food with highbrow debates.

By BRITTANEY KIEFER, Times Staff Writer
Published August 23, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Danny Ghitis] Victoria Foust has been a Mensa member for about 20 years. When tested for her IQ years ago she scored 182. Foust was president of the Pensacola chapter, vice president in Tallahassee, and now a member of the Tampa chapter.

SPRING HILL - The six people at the table were quiet until someone mentioned the cost of health insurance. Then each person was eager to share his or her opinion about health care in the United States.

One woman voiced her outrage at the price of prescription drugs, and within moments the conversation turned into a heated debate about politics and the pharmaceutical industry.

This intellectual debate, which some might expect to overhear in a university classroom, took place in a more unlikely setting: Perkins Restaurant & Bakery in Spring Hill.

The six people involved were members of Mensa, the worldwide organization whose members have scored in the top 2 percent on an IQ test. The handful of Mensans who live in Hernando County meet at Perkins on the second Monday of each month for lunch and intelligent conversation.

Victoria Foust, 68, a 21-year member of Mensa, hosts the luncheons. Foust moved to Spring Hill two years ago and hosted the first luncheon a few months later. She wanted to meet other area Mensans.

Like Foust, most who attended the lunch have been Mensa members for more than 20 years. Through marriages, cross-country moves and career changes, they have looked to other Mensans for companionship and intellectual stimulation.

Millie Satterfield, 78, of Spring Hill, joined Mensa 25 years ago while working as a computer programmer in Salt Lake City. Satterfield said she began attending Mensa meetings because the members were open-minded and discussed unpopular opinions and ideas.

"The Mensans were freethinkers," she said. "It was delightful."

Now retired, Satterfield still enjoys hearing the different views of other Mensans. She spends much of her time talking with Mensa members online.

"We argue. We're violent. It's really fun," she said.

Foust decided to join Mensa after interviewing three Mensa members on a TV show she hosted in Connecticut. Since then, she has always made time to participate in Mensa activities. After moving to Florida 18 years ago, she was president of the Pensacola chapter of Mensa and vice president of the Tallahassee chapter. Now, besides hosting the monthly luncheons in Spring Hill, she makes a chocolate buffet once a year for the Tampa Bay Mensa regional gathering.

Foust, who owns R & R Garage Doors in Brooksville with her husband, Kenneth, said her Mensa membership helps her maintain a social life. Through Mensa activities in Spring Hill and Tampa, she also has been able to reconnect with friends she knew in Connecticut.

"Mensa is like a big family," she said.

At the Aug. 13 luncheon, one person in attendance was new to Mensa. Karl Bambas, 74, is a retired computer consultant who lives in Spring Hill. He joined Mensa six months ago because he was looking for people who shared his interests and appetite for intellectual discussions.

During the luncheon, while in the middle of a conversation about sailplanes, Bambas turned to the person sitting next to him and smiled.

"You meet so many interesting people in this group," he said.

At a glance

More about Mensa

For more about the Hernando Mensa group, call Victoria Foust at 596-8242.

[Last modified August 22, 2007, 20:46:53]