Sigma Chi was founded on June 28, 1855 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Lloyd Garfield “Bally” Balfour, a Sigma Chi from the Lambda Chapter at Indiana University, remains one of its most illustrious members.
Although he earned a law degree, Balfour spent five years as a travelling sales representative for a college fraternity jewelry manufacturer. He was disgusted with the lack of standardization which plagued the industry. Itinerant salesmen peddled substandard jewelry at chapter houses across the country.
On June 13, 1913, Balfour started his company in Attleboro, Massachusetts. That year he also married Ruth DeHass, a Pi Beta Phi from Butler University's Indiana Gamma Chapter. Pi Beta Phi became his first fraternity account when his company became the official jeweler after a vote of the 1913 Pi Beta Phi Convention. Other accounts followed, including Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana.
The Balfours were low-key, generous philanthropists. They had no children, but their legacy lives on in the scholarships and projects they continue to fund through their foundation.
(If you'd like to read more about L.G. Balfour, it can be found at
http://wp.me/s20I1i-1018 )
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