CHARTERING OHIO GAMMA OF SIGMA ALPHA EPISLON
"FAME AND FORTUNE": A SPECTACULAR YEAR
OUR FRATERNITY RADIO STATION
John Curran and John Day were photo majors, finding time on their hands and always tinkering with model airplanes and other hobbies. They finally built a crystal radio and figured how to bug all the radios in the house. That spawned the idea of creating a chapter radio station. Research discovered an unlicensed but technically legal way to do it, transmitting over power lines radiating within certain legal parameters. They worked day and night and created WGAM, which could be heard throughout most of the campus. I later heard John Curran ended up as a broadcast engineer.
Pictured is DJ Brother Tom Mac Clintock actually on the
air. Don Allen, eventually a career TV
news anchor, is in the framed photo above the studio.
We had many radio majors and some worked at the local commercial station, WATH. When they came off shift there, they would bring in the AP wire printout and that's how we got our news. At the peak, we operated from 6AM to 1AM and dedicated the after-curfew DJ show to a different sorority or girls dorm every night; that was most productive in making the phone ring! You can read and see more photos of the station in the Petition Brochure. The experience taught me the power of radio and I ended up in a broadcasting career that spanned three decades, operating radio stations.
OUR FIRST TROPY
Early the next spring ('52) we won our first trophy by creating the winning float for the Greek Week Parade and carrying the Alpha Delta Pi candidate for Queen, Susan Kunkel, who actually won the crown. The brothers had agreed this could be a real doable opportunity to make a statement and worked exhaustingly into the night before the parade.
As President, here I am accepting the award, which was presented at the big Inter Fraternity Council (IFC) ball by IFC president, John Butrain, a Beta; as famous big-band leader, Woody Herman, looks on, over my shoulder. After celebrating appropriately, we immediately and optimistically designated a sitting room with fireplace, just off the living room, as our "trophy room" and displayed the lone trophy, proudly. Before too many semesters, that room would become crowded with other awards and trophies evidencing the Chapter's successes. One of them even happened to be for a short-lived # 1 in scholarship, our second "win".
THE PARTY BOYS
The original Tri-Gam Chapter had hosted an annual formal dance with the outrageous name, "PURPLE PARROT". It was Bill Herr who came up with the idea to revive the tradition and Don Geaman chaired the first one in the Spring of 1952. Bill decorated the house, wonderfully colorful. The event was a smashing success and being invited to the Purple Parrot became a status symbol. By 1953 it was so big we co-hosted it with the Chi-Omega Sorority, took over the Student Union and hired the most popular Ray Anthony's band to play for us. The "Bunny Hop" was Anthony's big hit then and when we all did it in "time" until it set up a harmonic vibration at the Center. The joint was literally "jumpin"! That hop was never to be performed again in that building.
It was ironic that we became known as the party boys of the fraternity
world at the same time as winning the fraternity Scholarship trophy. While other chapters frequented the in-town
Tavern and highway Club 33, we found a small basement level bar out of town in
a rural area. We could have privacy
from other college students to formulate our plans and wishfully and secretly
learn the songs of 
. The bar was
called "The Elms" and an owner named "Goody" ran it with
his wife. We became their darlings as
we organized an "Elm Run" almost nightly, after study and the co-ed's
curfew of 10 PM (on weeknights). No
other group was ever able to invade our territory. Our reputation for partying escalated one night when we made a
stop for hamburgers after the "run".
"HOTCAKES TO GO!"
Jakes was an all night diner at the upper end of Athens' State Street and both locals and college kids patronized it. After a particularly late evening at The Elms, about a dozen of us decided we needed food before bed and arrived in three cars. Sitting at the counter, brother Doug Johnson saw "Jakes old fashioned Griddle Cakes" on the menu and joked he wanted to get some, "to go". We all roared and then the outlandish idea seemed to make sense in our enlightened condition, so everybody got an order "to go".
Sobered by the coffee and hamburgers, we all left with pancake stuffed pockets and began to wonder what to do with them. Touring the campus, we decided to leave the draped over the campus entrance like Salvador Dali's fluid clocks. The next day, the campus paper carried the story asking where the pancakes came from. That was all the incentive we needed to repeat the performance and it got press, too. One night after winning a huge basketball game, the varsity coach's front porch got them and it soon became a symbol of something good. After coming back following our serenade of a sorority house (commemorating a "pinning") and spreading the cakes all over the porch of the honoree, the word leaked out who was doing it. Soon, the campus knew: pancakes on your doorstep meant the Tri-Gams had blessed you!
Pancake "runs" became a regular event and we were quite famous for them. Nobody ever filed a complaint but we did hear of housemothers at sororities and women's dorms grumbling about the cleanup.
In 1967 I visited the chapter on mother's day weekend as an alum. During an after hours party with the chapter I told the story and that night the tradition was revived, at least temporarily. Running across campus with the new gang spreading hotcakes everywhere, I suddenly sobered enough to realize, now at age 37, I could be guilty of "contributing to the delinquency of minors" and figured I'd better take a lower profile. I did go back to my room in the "annex" with a smile on my face.
THE MEN'S INDEPENDENT ASSOCIATION ALLIES?
Another extra-curricular activity was the theatre movie on campus, three nights a week (Wednesday, Friday Saturday). Ironically, the Men's Independent Association (MIA) sponsored the event but a number of us Tri-Gam fraternity guys had been paid ushers and we kept getting hired for the ticket taking jobs. It was a cushy job: we got paid a flat sum, about triple minimum wage for an hour, only worked 45 minutes and got two free tickets to the movie! So those of us with girl friends got cheap dates a couple of nights a week. At one point we comprised all the ticket takers and even took the proceeds back to the house for counting. Yes, we were not unfriendly to the MIA and the long-standing relationship was well known all around campus.
NEXT: THE INSPIRATION