A day late and a dollar short keeps coming to mind. My time has not been my own lately, but I’ve had a chance to peruse the GLO twitterverse in the last few days, and here’s what I’ve found.
I missed National Hazing Prevention Week #NHPW. Educating GLO members about hazing is a constant process. Membership is ever changing, new members join the organization and others graduate or leave. And if all you knew about GLOs was from what you watched in movies, films and Youtube videos, you would expect that hazing would be the norm. It’s not, but it can be a scourge. In the chapters where hazing rears its ugly head, it is imperative that it be stopped, not just for the good of that chapter but for the future of all of our chapters. Hence #NHPW.
Happy Birthday to the Circle of Sisterhood! Congratulations Ginny Carroll for making it a reality.
Congratulations to the Virginia Zeta chapter of Phi Kappa Psi which was installed this past weekend. Pi Beta Phi is the only NPC sorority which names its chapters in state and Greek letter order. Pi Phi’s chapter at Virginia Tech is also the Virginia Zeta chapter.
Service projects are a big part of GLOs. Here are just two of the pictures of service projects which took place last week.
There have been a few testimonials from fraternity members which have caught my eye. Pete Derzis won Theta Chi’s highest individual award while he was a member of the University of Alabama chapter.
Joe Bertolino, President of Southern Connecticut State University, (above) and Sam Wyche’s (below) discussed their fraternity experiences.
This tweet from Beta Theta Pi reminded me that soon there will not be any fraternity man or sorority woman who remembered listening to President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech on a radio in the chapter house. Soon they will all be gone. Kudos to the Maine Betas for hosting Robert Buchanan.
Danny Thomas was an honorary initiate of Tau Kappa Epsilon. President Ronald Reagan became a TKE at Eureka College. Reagan loved to visit TKE chapter houses and treasured his fraternity membership. The president of the Eureka chapter was invited to President Reagan’s funeral, an act which I find quite touching.
A shout out to Towner Blackstock, Curator of Phi Gamma Delta’s Archives. I learn so much from his twitter posts.
I missed two events this past weekend. One was Greek Sing at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, an event that is older than 50 years. Although the meaning of “sing” has evolved over the decades, the enthusiasm the chapters have for the event has not. The second was the Friends of Carbondale Public Library fall book sale. I love being part of the crew that sets up and runs the book sales. It was also the debut of our book quilt on the wall opposite the entrance to the building. I had nothing to do with this except taking dust jackets off of books.
Where would I like to be this weekend? Plymouth Notch, Vermont for the “I do not Choose to Run” walk. Alas, it will have to wait until a future year. (For those who are not regular readers of this blog, Calvin Coolidge was a member of Phi Gamma Delta and his lovely wife Grace was a Pi Beta Phi. They are the first President and First Lady initiated into GLOs while in college.)
