Recruiting a High Pi to the middle of [relative] nowhere

[choster]

Greeting everyone; I am, as they say, a longtime lurker, and I hesitate to ask for advice as I cannot be said to have contributed to the community here. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine our chapter is the only one who has faced this problem: when there are almost no alumni who live near the chapter, how do you recruit a High Pi?

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Cornell is located in Ithaca, with a population of about 40,000 about five hours northwest of New York City. It is not a "small town" by many standards. But almost no one is "from" here— the overwhelming majority of students come from farther than 200 miles away, and three decades of a depressed economy and depopulation in upstate New York means no one ever comes back except for a grad program or to take a short-term job with the colleges.

Therefore, our High Pis, since Doc Dirghalli stepped down in the 1960s, have almost entirely been drawn from business school, law school, and graduate school students. But recently, the qualifications for High Pi have been tightened, so that instead of being at least two years out of school, the candidate must be at least five years out of school. That very sharply reduces the number of candidates to choose from.

We recently ran a search on MyLCA for brothers of the Class of 1970 and younger who live in the county. There were five results: two former law students and one former intern (bad addresses), one grad student (too young), and one not interested. Going further afield is a dubious adventure. I realize in some parts of the country that a 50-mile drive is no big deal, but the roads here are narrow and winding (you need to drive almost 40 minutes to get to an interstate), and winters are harsh, and it's a lot to ask an alum with a career and family to drive in from over an hour away at least once a week.

On the flip side, we could recruit an alum from out of the area. After all, cheap mobile phone plans, videoconferencing, and the like mean communication is frequent and easy. But a few years ago we tried this, with a very energetic alum who lives in New York City, and the results were mixed. Having a High Pi physically present for chapter meetings and Ritual and whatnot cannot be replicated on an iPhone teleconference.

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What do other chapters in small towns do? Is there someone who just happens to live in town who's willing to serve? That's happened for us three times, the last from about 1975-1989, but not a situation that exists right now. Do you have a remote High Pi who only visits a few times a year? Do you appoint a non-brother? Do you simply go without?