continued……….
My College Years
Sophomore year at USD
TKE Fraternity
During my first semester at the University of South Dakota I had a friend come over to the dorm and told me all about this fraternity that he had joined. His name was Jack Bright and he was from my hometown of Sac City. He was 2 or 3 years older than me
He tried to convince me to joined the fraternity. I would have lots of fraternity brothers to help me with my studies and it was a good way to meet girls. I wasn't all that interested in meeting girls at that time since I had a hobby of writing to about 25 different girls that were either classmates or girls I had met. I use to have a very good way to get the girls to write to me.
During the course of a date or while we were dancing, we would get around to talking about our likes, and eventually we would talk about hobbies. I said my hobby was graphology. Right away they would respond by asking me what is graphology; I would tell them it was analyzing handwriting. Of course there next response would always be that they wanted me to analyze their handwriting. My comeback was OK you will have to write me a letter so I can get a sample of your handwriting. That worked so well. I met and began writing to a lot of girls. I figured it was also safer that way too.
The name of the Fraternity was Tau Kappa Epsilon. Our chapter was the Theta Eta Chapter and I was one of the first members. My number was 7 in the order. I am sure that in the future statistics that new TKE pledges had to memorize The First Offices in the original chapter (Theta Eta) Some Interesting and famous TKE’s were: Ronald Reagan, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Les Paul, Merv Griffin, Danny,Thomas, Laurence Welk, George Halas, the Everly Brothers, to name a few. TKE’s had a good reputation nationally of being a fraternity with good academic records.
Ronald ReaganFmr. U.S. President/Gov. of California (Iota Chapter)
Mike O'Callaghan
Fmr. Gov. of Nevada
Frank B. Morrison
Fmr. Governor of Nebraska
Albert Rossellini
Fmr. Governor of Washington
George Leader
Fmr. Governor of Penn.
Victor Schiro
Fmr. Mayor/New Orleans
David S. Hayes
Pennsylvania Representative
William H. Hudnut, III
Fmr. Mayor/Indianapolis
Richard B. Stone
Fmr. Senator/ U.S. Ambassador
James E. Fitzmorris
Fmr. Lt. Gov./Louisiana
Don Henderson
Mayor of El Paso, Texas
William Hyland
Frm. Deputy Dir./Nat'l Security Council
Carl D. Pursell
U.S. Congress
Wesley W. Watkins
U.S. Congress
James A. Graham
Comm. of Agriculture/NC
Bruce B. Melchert
Fmr. Chairman/IN Rep. Party
Pete T. Cenarrusa
5-term Sec. of State/Idaho
Martin Schreiber
Fmr. Governor of Wisconsin
Robert W. Jepsen
Fmr. Senator/Iowa (Beta Xi Chapter)
Bill Stark
FBI/Foreign Counterintellegence Division
Robert C. Byrd
U.S. Senator/West Virginia/Ranking Min. Leader (Alpha-Pi Chapter)
George Miller
California Representative
Bill Baker
California Representative
Bob Barr
Georgia Representative
Lane Evans
Illinois Representative
W.J. Tauzin
Louisiana Representative
Richard E. Neal
Massachusetts Representative
Dave Camp
Michigan Representative
Joe Knollenberg
Michigan Representative
Bill Barrett
Nebraska Representative
Earl Pomeroy
North Dakota Representative
Bill Brewster
Oklahoma Representative
James H. Quillen
Tennessee Representative
Charles Wilson
Texas Representative
John Bryant
Texas Representative
Walter Myers, Jr.
Indiana Supreme Court Just.
L. Talbot Hood
Fmr. Director of Radio Free Europe/London
David Hartley
Ohio State Representative
George Ferguson
Auditor/State of Ohio
Charles A. Whitaker
Assoc. Justice/KS Sup. Court
Lester C. Hunt
Fmr. Senator/Gov. of WY
Alan C. Nelson
U.S. Comm. of Immigration
James B. Long
Comm. of Insurance/NC
Sidney W. Morrison
U.S. Congress
John G. Rowland
Governor of Delaware
G. Michael Witte
Indiana Court Justice
Marion M. Nelson
Retired Deputy Chief/U.S. Forest Service
John Sisco
Fmr. Undersec./Pres/American Un.
Donald Hunter
Indiana Supreme Court Just.
Robert W. Berrey, III
Apellate Judge/Missouri Court of Appeals
John Gibson
Judge/U.S. Court of Appeals
Marshall Gardener
Retired/Hearings and Appeals/Soc Security Dir.
Charles Walgreen, Jr
President, Walgreen Drug Stores
Conrad Hilton
Hilton Hotels (Alpha Omicron Chapter)
Paul Mobley
President, Noble Romans Restaurants
(Gamma Kappa Chapter)
Paul Oerrifice
Past Chairman, Dow Chemical
(Alpha Zeta Chapter)
Frank J. Jirka
AMA Past President
Ed Droste
Founder and owner of Hooter's restaurants (Epsilon Chapter)
James P. Evans
Double Tree Hotels
Some additional facts about TKE’S:
Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity
- Founded on January 10, 1899 at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois.
- More than 257,000 men have been initiated into the bond of Tau Kappa Epsilon.
- 291active chapters and colonies located throughout the United States and Canada.
- Governed by its Grand Chapter, which meets in biennial Conclaves to elect a Grand Council and revise or amend The Black Book (the International Constitution and Bylaws). The Grand Chapter is primarily made up of undergraduates.
- The Grand Council governs the Fraternity between Conclaves.
- 30 full-time employees on the professional Fraternity Staff. Thousands volunteer as unpaid staff.
- Tau Kappa Epsilon publishes a quarterly magazine titled The Teke.
- The Grand Council appoints Fraters to serve on a three subcommittees of the Grand Council. they are the Judiciary, and Investment Committees, and the Grand Court.
- As a partner in the 1899 Properties LLC, the owner of our International offices, the Grand Council appoints two distinguished Fraters and the CEO to serve as Trustees and Manager.
- The Fraternity staff is supported by key volunteers who provide their time, talent and treasure throughout the TKE Nation. They include: Grand Province Advisors, Province Advisors and other leaders.
I continued to live in the dorm with Denny, I forgot to mention that the first Sunday I was in the dorm I was surprised when I went down to the cafeteria for lunch Sunday noon and it was closed. I asked around and I was told we had to go downtown to eat on Sunday, That is when I was introduced to Charlie's Pizza and drinking beer.
I wanted to add that before I continued with the fraternity experience. I had already established a love of beer when I joined the fraternity.
Old Large House we used as our Fraternity House
During the second semester we were able to move into a big old house and it became our new fraternity house. I was able to get a job as a "houseboy" to help pay for my room and food. We had hired a nice old lady to do the cooking.
Cleaning the Kitchen of our Fraternity House
This was about the time I was informed by one of my female classmates that attended Iowa State University in Ames that she had met one of my "old flames" a Caye Gimer from Eagle Grove, Iowa. Caye and I had first met in 3rd grade in Reynolds school in Spencer than re kindled our friendship at church camp when we were sophomores in high school. That had ended and now I was interested in seeing her again.
I had taken one of the family cars to school. I needed to go back home to bring some furniture for my room in the fraternity house. I talked a friend, Dick Latch, a fraternity brother and friend from Spencer, to travel back home to Sac City with me. We had also attended the same church, the Methodist church, in Spencer.
I forgot to mention that I had written to Caye Gimer and she had informed me that she was getting married to a friend of hers that was a high school senior. I wrote her and told her why I thought that was a very bad idea.
The next thing I knew, she had transferred to Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. We had to travel threw Sioux City to get back to Sac City so guess what...I stopped to see her on our way back to Vermillion ……..
Difficult Times at USD
Being on my own wasn’t all as good as I expected it to be. My tough times started when I starting paying attention to Caye, the girl I had a crush on in 3rd Grade.
She was attending Morningside College in Sioux City about 30 minutes from Vermillion. I started spending too much time thinking about her and neglecting my school work, the fraternity ( I was an officer) . and I also treated my mother with disrespect when she would try to open my eyes to the situation.
This all came to a head second semester my Sophomore year after I had started smoking. I made a bad choice of going to a party instead of typing my English composition paper. I was caught in a three way tug of war between my parents, the fraternity and the girl. Fortunately I had done nothing I would regret, but I was heading in that direction. I sent my mother a very disrespectful letter to my Mother (Caye had actually typed and put my name on it. I mailed the letter, however.
In a couple of days when I was in a fraternity meeting my dad called and told me I better get my tail home and apologize to my mother. He was extremely vocal about it.
I borrowed the car of a fraternity brother and headed back to Sac City. When I got there about midnight mom and dad were waiting at the kitchen table for me.
I was pretty scared. I could only think of one thing to do. I went directly over to a friend’s house . He was the one that got me out of a similar event when I was in high school. It was with the same girl.
His advice was the same as before when I was in 10th grade. Get out of the situation before it’s too late.
Well I was ready to do anything to follow his advice but I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that.
Some way the next day (Saturday) I found out my good friend Terry was living at his home there in Sac City.
He had been going to Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, about 30 minutes from Sac City.
Buena Vista College, Storm Lake, IA (before the name was changed to Buena Vista University)
I decided to go talk to him and share my dilemma with him. Terry told me that he was going to a college dance that evening and maybe I should go to the dance with him. He said he could get me a date and I agreed after he gave me this advice that I have never forgotten.
He told me to grab my left earlobe with my right hand and grab my right earlobe with my left hand and pull my head out of my underside.
Hummmmm well it worked!
I ended up returning to Vermillion. It was the end of the second year and I skipped all the remaining classes which was only the English composition class I had already flunked. I had all my art assignments turned in and was cool with everything else. I snuck out of the fraternity house at 4 AM and drove back to Sac City. The next morning I stopped at Morningside and broke it off with Caye. She cried and we exchanged pictures, sweatshirts and I got my fraternity pin back.
I felt very good the rest of the way home to Sac City. ( I have to tell you that 6 months later I heard that she had gotten married. )
I then prepared to transfer to Buena Vista the next year.
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