Branson, Mark Allen

Born near Clinton, Oklahoma; diagnosed as deaf at age 2. Attended public schools and the Jane Brooks Oral School for the Deaf, Chickasha, OK, and the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. Taught at several schools, including deaf-blind children at the Perkins School for the Blind; member of the National Theatre of the Deaf; played a minor role in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Disney, 1993). Died in Dallas, TX. Although he had been HIV-positive for 12 years, death was from a brain hemorrhage related to lymphoma.