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can of worms
Without opening a can of worms, I will say this: I will try to help
anyone about TKE or Greek history. I was indeed fortunate in
that I became quite close to several old timers. Grade my paper!
While lunching a few years back with Bruce Melchert in Boulder, I
asked him "Bruce, what ever happened to the old men in TKE"
He replied " WE are now the old men in TKE."
There were not a lot of men initiated in TKE before 1950. Frank
Moulton, KoA, here in Denver, was initiated in '50. He is 72. I'll
be 69 on 28 April. Wally Ginn, here in Denver, founder of KoA is nearing 80, was a fielder in '52, installed the 100th chapter but
was out of the country in the 60s thru the 80s.In 1950 TKE had about 85 active chapters, and only a few thousand alumni. TKE was a sleepy middle-sized outfit until the dynamic but sometimes ascerbic and controversial James Clifford Logan took
the helm and introduced REAL expansion to the greek world.
We had few alums and the average Teke back then, from year
one to 1950 was in his late 20s....so, not many old timers.
As TKE grew we had a field staff, then KoA to help buttress the
non-existent alums. But still, few old timers.
By the time I was 50 TKE had moved to Indy, and a sleeping GC
plus questionable leadership had isolated alumni by the hundreds
By the time I was 60 virtually all the former field men and alumni
had become so disenchanted with TKE that it takes an act of God
to get the remaining ones to do anything. They have been ignored and isolated so long it is unlikely there are a dozen who
have stories, tales, etc over the age of 65.
I am sorry to say this. Some of us harped and griped and yelled
for YEARS about all this...while we were losing a dozen chapters
a year. We are finally, now, turning the corner.
If there is an old alum around, greet him, talk to him, bring him
back in the fold. There are now thousands of them, but few with
the spark we'd like and it is hard to re-capture.
BUT, hand me the mike, I'll do the best I can. I can remember even things that did not happen. LOL Mark Fite has had a tough
time with the history, the archives are virtually non-existent as
Jim Kane (now gone, too) told me. No further comment on this.
I have said enough. There are many fences to be mended in TKE
and I seriously doubt they will ever be. Many of the former GC
members who slept those years are still in denial. It is not a good memory to me, either. YITB, Erik Paul Conard, Gamma Phi,
133, pledged by Jim Logan, hired by Hall. I loved 'em both...
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