House mother loved at UNL Beta chapter

[hoosier]

For Beta house, Gallon is the woman in charge
BY JULIE HUBBARD Lincoln Journal Star


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MJ WILLIAMS/Lincoln Journal Star Sharon Gallon is Mom to 84 members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the Univeristy of Nebraska-Lincoln.


Sharon Gallon
Age: 58
Occupation: Fraternity housemother
Quote: "I was always involved with both my kids and when they grew up, I just thought being a house mom would be a neat thing to do."
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Sharon Gallon has two kids, plus 84 boys.
Her more than 40-room home of red bricks, plate-glass windows and dragon crests above three Greek letters, doesn't stay quiet much, if at all.

The nine tables in the dining room are usually filled. The brown staircase often echoes of footsteps, and computer keyboards clack away at all hours of the night in the downstairs study hall.

Gallon shares her home with the 84 members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the mom away from home.

She treats her "boys" as if they were her own: teaching them how to court girls, giving them lessons on table etiquette, and even disciplining them every now and then by making them put a quarter in the anti-profanity jar.

It's a lot like a real household, in a way.

Boys will be loud. Boys will stay up late. And boys are often mischievous, playing tricks like setting Gallon's table setting with four spoons instead of the usual salad and dinner fork.

But the full-time job has its rewards as well.

"Being a house mom is very rewarding because you get to know each boy," she said. "And take an active role in their lives."

The door to her room, in a corner behind a large den with fireplace and black grand piano, stays propped open.

Her cozy living room has patchwork quilts that line the chairs amid a sewing machine and arts and crafts, such as a handmade painted rooster picture hanging on the wall.

Gallon, an energetic-Texan, chose to be a house mom after her son and daughter started their own families and her husband died.

She spent her first three years as a house mom for an Oklahoma State University sorority. When she heard the Beta house in Lincoln needed a house mom, she applied.

Gallon preferred to be a fraternity house mom, and she's been at it for three years.

"Boys identify more with girl role models more than girls do," she said.

The fraternity members often stop into Gallon's inviting living room to talk about their girlfriends or get grease stains out of shirts, or just say hi.

The 58-year-old is involved with parents, too.

Many call her to order cakes for their son's birthday.

Some of the fraternity members have invited their second-mother to their homes for the holidays. One is taking her home to watch cattle branding and have a family dinner.

"Her role is on a different level then other house mom's I've seen," said Beta Theta Pi President Kyle Johnson, a junior from Omaha.

Other house moms do the job because they're paid to, but Gallon has more involvement with the 84 members, he said, and she puts up with a lot.

She has a routine with the members, just as a mother does with her own school children.

She leaves her day job in registration at UNL to eat with the household. At night, she often goes to movies with some of the members. When some have their nightly jam sessions on guitars and drums on the third floor directly above Gallon's living room, she's so accustomed to it, she doesn't seem to mind.

Nor does she mind hearing the chords to "Piano Man" played on the piano about three feet in front of her living room door.

One bonus she has as a house mom as compared with a parent is not having to wash dirty socks or clean up after the boys. They do that.

"I can't say what other houses are like," she said, "but I know I love my Beta house."