MSU student wins top engineering award
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For any student, the advice and the attitude of a teacher can make a world of difference. And there is no better example of that then Lake County’s own Marques Jones.
This May, Jones graduated from Montana State University with a degree in chemical engineering. As if that’s not impressive enough, Jones ended his academic career with honors and was awarded the Gold Medal Award from the Montana Society of Engineers.
Not too shabby for a kid, who was told he was slow in the third grade.
“We weren’t going to hold him back,” Linda Jones, Marques’ mother said.
Linda currently teaches at the Ronan Middle School. She explained that when the teacher told them her opinion, the impact on the family was detrimental. At that time, Marques attended elementary school in Arlee, where his mother taught and she had trouble believing that her son was slow.
Marques resorted to being the class clown and never believed that he was smart enough to succeed in class. He showed little interest in school and lost confidence in his academic endeavors.
According to his mother, his third-grade teacher and her opinion of her son was a negative turning point in his young academic career.
The situation deteriorated when Marques got to high school. He considered dropping out of school and communicated his thoughts to his parents.
After spending a year working at his ranch and attending a Christian school in Ronan, he transferred to Polson High School.
At Polson, Marques started his sophomore year. The teachers and staff at Polson looked at Marques with fresh eyes and expected him to succeed, refusing to tolerate his classroom antics.
“That’s when I realized that there was someone taking an interest in my education as well,” Marques said.
Once he was expected to learn, he didn’t hesitate.
According to Linda, his math teacher inspired him. She saw in him the raw intelligence that was just missed by his other teachers. That teacher’s name is Polly Dupuis and she instilled in Marques the drive and motivation to achieve academic excellence.
“He was one of those kids who had a lot of potential,” Dupuis said. “I kept on pushing him and encouraging him, and it got to the point where (his intelligence) impressed himself.”
Dupuis, who remembered the student as a shy kid with an innate ability, stated that she was impressed by his persistence and tenacity. With the encouragement of Dupuis, Marques discovered his interest in school and he started taking more difficult math courses to better prepare himself for college.
“Once Marques was given that confidence by his instructors,” Linda said. “There was really no stopping him.”
Marques took two years of math during his junior year to catch up on the math courses he needed to excel in college. He also knew by the time he was a senior that he wanted to obtain a degree in chemical engineering.
When he graduated from Polson, he finished with honors and decided to avoid incurring debt while at Montana State University by joining the U.S. Army National Guard.
It was a decision that would have given his parents a bit more peace if his division hadn’t been called up to go to Iraq.
But as life would have it, Marques’ unit was deployed the summer between his junior and senior years. The soldier and the rest of the 163rd division spent 12 months with their boots on the ground in Iraq. And another six months at bases in the Louisiana and Texas.
His mother compared his experience to the movies — he was taking out the bad guys, and came back home with more trauma than he had bargained for. Even at the airport, the soldier felt vulnerable to an attack.
“He said ‘Mom, I feel like we are going to die,’” Linda said.
Despite the hellish memories of war, he continued his education and carried on with even more perseverance than when he began. With a motto of diligence and hard work, Marques made it to graduation with honors, but didn’t have high hopes of obtaining the award he had been nominated for. He was running against some very accomplished and intelligent engineers.
But much to his surprise, he was awarded the Gold Medal Award by the Montana Society of Engineers, reserved for the top engineering student in the state.
