Among our current Board Members and Speakers Bureau, Steve Grimes knew him the best. His memories of Dave are poignant and heartfelt:

Dr. David Menton, former president of the Missouri Association for Creation, passed into the Lord’s presence this past Saturday, December 11th. He was my brother in Christ, my mentor, and my friend.

I first met Dave in the 1980’s at a talk he gave at Westminster Christian Academy in St.
Louis. His talk was, as they always were, fascinating and very informative, covering some of the mathematical challenges to obtain the specific sequence of amino acids necessary to build a biologically useful protein. Some of this information came out of the Wistar symposium of mathematicians and evolutionists in the 1960’s. The beautiful thing was that Dave presented the information so clearly that, that even the “math challenged” among us could follow the reasoning.

Fortunately for me Dave’s car was in the shop that day and he needed a ride after the talk to retrieve it. I volunteered immediately and this began a series conversations and lunches for us, made more convenient because we were both employed at Washington University in St.
Louis. (He being a tenured professor and Gross Anatomy course master in the School of Medicine; I being adjunct faculty in University College at the time.) I began attending the MAC meetings at that time, especially when he presented, often with my four children in tow.

Dave’s responses to evolutionists on the dial-up, MAC bulletin board (BBS) were legend. His short articles were also excellent and timeless - so much so that MAC has assembled a booklet containing many of them. They read as well today as when he crafted them.

In his “Fond Farewell to a Great Scientist and Friend: David Menton”, Ken Ham mentioned a trip he had made to St. Louis in the 1980’s where he met Dave. I believe that is the time I was blessed to drive with Dave to pick up Ken Ham and Duane Gish at Lambert field. (I forget whether Dave’s car was broken down again.) It was my pleasure to shuttle them to their Clayton hotel. Dr. Gish was in town for a debate at W.U. that became a presentation instead. (Evolutionists started ducking debates around this time.)

In my travels, I have been blessed to hear many gifted servants of God presenting and explaining the evidence and majesty of His creation. Dave Menton was at the top of the heap.

In closing, I knew Dave only a short while before his first wife, Marsha, lost her fight with cancer and passed away. At the funeral home, I gave Dave a copy of this March 22, evening devotion from Charles Haddon Spurgeon based on John 17:24. He remembered this years later and thanked me for it. I think it appropriate for me to share it here.

O death! why dost thou touch the tree beneath whose spreading branches weariness hath rest? Why dost thou snatch away the excellent of the earth, in whom is all our delight? If thou must use thine axe, use it upon the trees which yield no fruit; thou mightest be thanked then. But why wilt thou fell the goodly cedars of Lebanon? O stay thine axe, and spare the righteous. But no, it must not be; death smites the goodliest of our friends; the most generous, the most prayerful, the mostholy, the most devoted must die. And why? It is through Jesus’ prevailing prayer—“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” It is that which bears them on eagle’s wings to heaven. Every time a believer mounts from this earth to paradise, it is an answer to Christ’s prayer. A good old divine remarks, “Many times Jesus and his people pull against one another in prayer. You bend your knee in prayer and say ‘Father, I will that thy saints be with me where I am’; Christ says, ‘Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me whereI am.’” Thus the disciple is at cross-purposes with his Lord. The soul cannot be in both places: the beloved one cannot be with Christ and with you too. Now, which pleader shall win the day? If you had your choice; if the King should step from his throne, andsay, “Here are two supplicants praying in opposition to one another, which shall be answered?” Oh! I am sure, though it were agony, you would start from your feet, and say, “Jesus, not my will, but thine be done.” You would give up your prayer for your loved one’s life, if you could realize the thoughts that Christ is praying in the opposite direction—“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” Lord, thou shalt have them. By faith we let them go.

R.I.P. Dave Menton.

— Steve Grimes

I would like to tell a short tale on Dr. Menton.  We backpacked the Grand Canyon once with him for 5 days.  Walt Stumper and Will Burgener and our wives were along.  Dr. Menton told us that since we would be hiking and camping down in the canyon for 5 days and having no showers down there he said something the  effect  that he didn’t want any of this “formal Dr. Menton stuff” but to just call him “Dave”.  Some how that really blessed me.   Then another tale in the canyon is that one day late in the afternoon while taking a rest from hiking Dave said he would start out just before the rest of us and clear the path of rattlesnakes (as  joke).  Be careful what you say.  It wasn’t far when there was a rattle snake curled up right on the trail.  Dave almost stepped on it.  This was the first of 4 rattle snakes we were to see in the 5 days that We were in the canyon.  He threw small pebbles at it the try to get it to move but it would not budge.  So Dave just stayed there to warn us and troop of Boy Scouts that was coming through on the trail of the snakes location.  That earned him the canyon nick name of Rattle Snake Dave.

Truly a great man.  I’m thankful I got to know him a little as a person and not just someone standing up front giving a talk.

— Paul Weiland