Brodt, Stephen Jon (January 23, 1939—October 24, 2020)

Stephen Brodt from Sibley, Iowa, after a year at Dakota Wesleyan University, joined our class in the Fall of 1958. He was a resident of Smith Hall and a member of the College golf team, serving as co-captain his senior year and having a reputation as “a prodigious long-ball hitter.” As a Sociology and Anthropology major, Stephen obtained his Grinnell B.A. in June 1961.

During his Grinnell years he dated and fell in love with Barbara J. Scanlon (’62), and they were married on June 16, 1962 in Glen Ellyn, IL.

For his graduate education, Stephen started at the University of Chicago School of Business before going to the University of Iowa, where he studied Sociology, worked as a teaching assistant and obtained the M.A. degree in 1964 and the Ph.D.

in 1973. While in Iowa City, he also was an abstractor for the Journal of Marriage and the Family.

In the Summer of 1967 he and Barbara moved to Muncie, Indiana, where he became an Assistant Professor at Ball State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. A year later he was promoted to Associate Professor and later to Professor and eventually to Department Chair. His focus was criminal justice and was a co-author of a major study of murders and suicides in intimate relationships. His students loved him for his sense of humor and showing them such classic crime movies as “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas.”

Golf continued to be a lifelong passion for Stephen, who was famous at Ball State for bringing a golf club into faculty meetings and practicing his putts (without a ball).

Stephen and Barbara loved their four sons—Tom, Sndy Charlie and Alex—as seen in his coaching them in baseball or basketball or golf and watching their games. Their eldest, Tom, had serious medical problems, and Stephen often drove Tom to Indianapolis for the best medical care before he died in 2018.

Stephen and Barbara were active members of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Muncie. Stephen is survived by his wife Barbara, their three sons and five grandchildren.

Duane W. Krohnke