The Raymond L. Gardner Alumnus of the Year Award is made annually to the Phi Delt alumnus considered by the Gardner Award committee to have made the most significant contribution in three areas: Fraternity service, service to higher education, and community involvement. The award was originated by the Seattle Alumni Club in honor of Raymond L. Gardner, Washington 1918.

Brother Gardner enrolled at the University of Washington in 1914 where he participated in freshman crew and won letters in football in 1915, ’16 and ’17. He saw Army Service in World War I and returned to the University to graduate in 1920.

Gardner served as Chapter Adviser to Washington Alpha from 1938 through 1943, when he was appointed President of the Pi Province. In 1952 he was elected to the General Council, serving his last two years as Treasurer. He was forced by ill health to resign from the General Council in 1956. Brother Gardner was prominent nationally as a Director of the Lumber Manufacturers Association and a member ot the U. S. Department of Commerce’s American Lumber Standards Committee.

View the historical list of the Raymond L. Garder Alumnus of the Year winners.

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Burt Reynolds, Florida State ’57 was born on February 11, 1936, in Lansing, Michigan. Reynolds attended Florida State University on a football scholarship, but an injury led him to pursue acting. In 1957, Reynolds received his big break after he appeared in a New York City Center revival of Mister Roberts and subsequently signed a TV contract. Reynolds appeared regularly on television, with roles on Riverboat, Gunsmoke, Hawk, and Dan August, where he became a familiar face to television audiences. In 1961, Reynolds made his film debut in the movie Angel Baby, based on the novel Jenny Angel by Elsie Oakes Barber. The film was released on May 14, 1961, and starred George Hamilton and Salome Jens.

Both handsome and charming, Reynolds also increased his popularity in the early 1970s by appearing on numerous TV talk shows. His breakthrough role did not come until 1972’s Deliverance, which established him as both a star and a serious actor. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Reynolds remained one of Hollywood’s most sought-after superstars, with films ranging from Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) to Starting Over (1979).

With his film career waning in the mid-1980s, Reynolds returned to the small screen with the popular sitcom Evening Shade, for which he won an Emmy in 1991 and a Golden Globe in 1992. In the mid-1990s, Reynolds began his film comeback with his role as a drunken congressman in Striptease (1996). Although the film was a critical failure, Reynolds’ performance earned widespread kudos. His luck continued the following year when Paul Thomas Anderson cast him as a porn director in his acclaimed Boogie Nights, for which Reynolds won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe award.

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Read the cover story about Burt Reynolds from the Winter 1984-85 edition of The Scroll.

The first Phi Delta Theta Foundation scholarships were awarded in August, 1962, at the General Convention in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, when checks for $500 were presented to two outstanding undergraduate Phis: David Hakman of California Alpha at the University of California and James Gross of Ohio Zeta at Ohio State University. The third and fourth scholarships were awarded at the officers conference in August to Fred Favor of Arkansas Alpha at the University of Arkansas, and William McCarty of Pennsylvania Epsilon Dickinson College.

Today the Phi Delta Theta Foundation annually awards more than 400 scholarships and fellowships totaling nearly $600,000.

Phi Delta Theta’s 150th chapter installation took place on September 14, 1963, as the Fraternity welcomed Tennessee Gamma into the fold.

Initiation of the undergraduate members took place on Friday, September 13. Heading the initiation team was the President of the General Council, Sam Phillips McKenzie, Georgia ’45, who was aided by General Council Treasurer Jack E. Shepman, Cincinnati ’47; Executive Secretary Robert J. Miller, New Mexico ’50; Field Secretary Bruce Campbell, Bowling Green ’63; and Charles H. Miller Jr., Duke ’28, of the University of Tennessee faculty and the Knoxville Alumni Club.

Brother McKenzie presented the charter to the chapter president, Shelburne Ferguson, at Knoxville’s Second Presbyterian Church. Thirty men were initiated during Friday’s ceremony, including Sam Furrow, Bond No. 1 at Tennessee Gamma, Steve Butler, No. 2, and Robert Colvin, No. 3, the original three who banded together in May 1962, to form the colony. With the aid of the chapter adviser, Capt. Eldon H. Wright, West Virginia ’54, this small group of men formed the nucleus of what was to grow into the thirty-man chapter one year later.

The celebration banquet for the installation of Tennessee Gamma was held Saturday night, September 14, at the C’est Bon Country Club. Brother Sam McKenzie delivered an inspiring speech on the merits of the college fraternity, pointing to Phi Delta Theta as an ideal. He was introduced by the president of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Andrew Holt, who commended the group not only on their fine work but also on their affiliation with an outstanding organization. Brother Charles Miller, a professor at the University of Tennessee law school, acted as master of ceremonies.

When Weeb Ewbank, Miami 1928, started his National Football League head coaching career with the 1954 Baltimore Colts. He was forty-seven, not the age you ordinarily look for in a rookie coach. But the popular Ewbank stayed in command for the next twenty years, the first nine in Baltimore and the final eleven with the New York Jets. In so doing, he made an impact on pro football that has done much to ensure its emergence as America’s most popular spectator sport.

He is the only coach leading teams from the National and American Football Leagues to world championships. His Colts won NFL crowns in 1958 and 1959, and the 1968 Jets followed up their AFL championship with a victory in Super Bowl III. However, even more important than the victory itself is the effect of these Ewbank championships on the growth of pro football.

Millions of fans watched on national television for the first time as the Colts defeated the New York Giants, 23–17, in overtime in 1958. Many still call this game “the greatest ever played,” and there is no doubt the highly competitive nature of the contest did much to increase fan enthusiasm and anticipation in the years ahead.

A decade later, Weeb’s old team, the Colts, was heavily favored to make three straight Super Bowl victories for the supposedly superior NFL over the overmatched AFL. Instead, spurred by Weeb’s careful prodding, the Jets pulled one of the most stunning upsets in history. The competitive validity of the Super Bowl was never again in doubt.

In both Baltimore and New York, Weeb inherited young, disorganized teams. In both places, Ewbank instituted a patented building program that proved effective. In each city, his skill of judging and handling players was quickly apparent and a predominant factor in his success.

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Read an article about Ewbank from the Winter 1997 edition of The Scroll

On July 20, 1969, banner headlines across the nation and around the world announced Man Walks on Moon. A few months later, The Scroll ran a story entitled Moon Alpha Established: Armstrong Carries Phi Delta Theta Badge on Historic Apollo XI Moon Journey. The article explained: “The Wapakoneta, Ohio, native established Moon Alpha by carrying a special replica of Phi Delta Theta’s Founders Badge with him on his epic journey.” The badge was engraved with Neil Armstrong’s name, his (Purdue) chapter and Bond Number 851, and the designation Apollo XI, 1969. In a personal note to Executive Secretary Robert J. Miller at the Fraternity General Headquarters, Neil Armstrong, Purdue ’55, wrote that he was glad to carry the pin on Apollo XI and that he looked forward to the opportunity soon to return it to Oxford. So there it is now, and there it will remain, in the Founders Room alongside small silk flags of the United States and Phi Delta Theta that Armstrong had previously carried with him on his Gemini flight in 1966.

During the space odyssey of 1969, the Phis at Purdue set up a lawn display depicting the earth, the moon, and the speeding spaceship. At the climax of that flight, untold millions watching TV screens heard Neil Armstrong say, “Eagle has landed” and saw him take “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

On the return to Earth, Armstrong and his colleagues Aldrin and Collins addressed a joint session of Congress and received the newly created Congressional Space Medal of Honor. A few weeks later, the three astronauts began a thirty-eight-day world tour in which they presented to the governments of twenty-two countries replicas of the moon landing plaque: “We came in peace for all mankind.”

On September 9, 1969, the Post Office Department issued the Moon Stamp. A ten cents airmail commemorative picturing the first man on the moon, in a white helmet and space suit, stepping down from the ladder of the lunar module Eagle; over the pale moon horizon, it showed the earth, a cloudy marble swimming in endless space. Thus Neil Armstrong joined Benjamin Harrison, Miami 1852, William Allen White, Kansas 1890, and Frank Lloyd Wright, Wisconsin 1889, as Phis honored on United States postage stamps.

In January 1970, Neil Armstrong visited his alma mater, talked with President Fred Hovde, Minnesota ’29, and spent a relaxed hour with the Phis in the Purdue chapter house. There, he made it clear, in his soft-spoken way, that he would rather talk about his Purdue memories than the moon. Then, in June 1970, at Miami University, he gave the commencement address, received an honorary degree, signed the visitors’ register at Phi Delta Theta Headquarters, and presented an autographed moon-walk photo to the Fraternity. Finally, at a Washington, DC, news conference, he was asked what Apollo XI’s message was. He replied, “I believe that the message was that in the spirit of Apollo, a free and open spirit, you can attack a very difficult goal and achieve it if you can all agree . . . and work together to achieve that goal.”

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From In the Bond

The undeclared war in Vietnam created serious rips in the fabric of American society during that conflict in a way no previous military action ever had.

The unpopular war contributed to a generation gap that has never completely faded away, although the conflict itself was terminated in the 1975–76 period.

Because the ranks of the protesters were dominated by young people, there was a potential threat to the survival of the fraternity system.

To get at the root of campus unrest, one has to look at the surprising increase in the number of college students during the generation of the 1960s. In 1969 there were more than 9,000,000 full-time students across the country, nearly twice the student population at the start of the decade.

This was an activist generation concerned about the draft, the war, politics, and race relations. As Havighurst phrased it, “concerned more about today and tomorrow than yesterday.”

There was seemingly little respect for age, authority, or tradition. The activists were quick to defy academic authority and took over campus buildings and administrative offices at many schools.

After several years of campus violence and disruption, the ultimate confrontation will go down in American history, simply remembered as ‘Kent State.’

The anti-war protests were loud and sustained on the campus of the state school in northeastern Ohio. Triggered by the U.S. bombing of neutral Cambodia, thus spreading the Asian conflict, Kent State students demonstrated out of control for three nights, putting a severe strain on campus and city police.

Headlines across the nation blared “rioting students bum campus ROTC building.“ That was true, but the stories did not point out that the ROTC building was a Quonset hut and not part of the university’s permanent structures.

Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes was asked to intervene and dispatched a unit of the state’s national guard to restore order. When the troops arrived on the morning of May 4, 1979, dissident students passed out flyers calling for a “Rally at the Commons at noon.”

The rally turned tragic. The guardsmen, in full gear, were in formation up a hill overlooking the Commons where paths to various buildings intersected.

Matters got out of hand. The citizen soldiers had never had training in the control of unarmed civilians. Many of the students showed up to be spectators rather than participants. As the troops came down the hill in formation, some of the braver demonstrators, tragically more rash than brave, started to pelt them with rocks and other debris.

When the first shots were fired, the student mob began to scatter in all directions. But four students lay mortally wounded. The picture of their friends trying to comfort them was flashed around the world. Four students were dead, and nine were wounded.

For months state and federal commissions were trying to assess blame for the tragedy, but in the final analysis, there was no answer.

A member of Ohio Lambda wrote in a letter to The Scroll (regarding the inquests), “The answers they are going to get center around President Nixon’s escalation of the war by sending troops into Cambodia.

“Other reasons will include the absence of democracy in our so-called democratic system of government and the refusal of college and university administrations to listen to the questions and suggestions of their students.”

Although fraternity membership declined in the late 1960s, when Greek letters were considered supportive of the old order, the damage to the fraternity system was much less than one would have suspected.

Bob Miller was executive vice president of the Fraternity all through the troubled era and, in looking back, has some interesting thoughts.

“When anyone asks me about Vietnam, I ask them to define which years they are talking about,” Miller says. “The war lasted over a decade, and concerns were different at different times.

“It was a difficult period, but overall, Phi Delta Theta held its own, as did most of the larger and well-established Greek letter societies. We did lose a few chapters, but we managed to replace them, mostly at newer institutions.”

Miller surveyed chapters and members through the 1960s for this book. He discovered there were 119 active chapters in 1962, and that number had grown to 141 chapters and nine colonies a decade later in 1972.

“I don’t mean to indicate these weren’t difficult tunes,” Miller went on. “There were problems everywhere that called for different actions. We had more problems on the East and West Coasts. Fraternities in the tradition-oriented South carried on as usual most of the time.”

What Miller did see was a decline in the number of Phi Deft leaders in both the ranks of the younger alumni and in chapters on campus.

“By 1972, the worst was over, but fraternities, and I think all fraternities, were slow to adjust to the new demands of getting the system back to its older basic ways.

“We observed chapters that had forgotten how to rush, how to administer their affairs, often including their financial affairs,” Miller summed it up. “The general objective was to build bridges back to the original standards.”

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Read the Report From Kent State from the September 1970 edition of The Scroll

 

At the 1972 Convention in Montreal, Executive Officer Bob Miller announced plans for celebrating Phi Delta Theta’s 125th birthday throughout the biennium. One observance of the anniversary was the publication in the eight issues of The Scroll of this condensed history of Phi Delta Theta’s first 125 years. A more tangible recognition was the Fraternity’s commemorative gift to Miami University of the Campus Gates immediately across from the Phi Delta Theta Headquarters.

The handsome gateway at the head of the historic slant walk, which in 1848 led to the Old North Dorm and the Founders’ Room, was dedicated on the afternoon of December 26, 1973, precisely 125 years after the first meeting of the original six members of Phi Delta Theta. Under the chairmanship of Don Mason, Miami ’35, with the collaboration of Fraternity and university officers, publicity was developed, funds were secured, and a brick-and-stone design was chosen in harmony with the campus architecture and that of the Phi Delta Theta Headquarters building.

To a gathering of invited guests, including officials of Miami University and general officers of several other fraternities, General Council President John D. Millett stated: “This Fraternity was founded as a means of meeting a very distinct need on the campus of that day, 125 years past. It is equally true that fraternities are still meeting a social need on college campuses today. With a sense of the strong Phi Delta Theta ties to Miami University, the Fraternity is delighted to have this opportunity to present this gateway.” The gift was gratefully accepted by Miami President Phillip R. Shriver, a member of Delta Upsilon.

Robert J. Miller, standing in a thin, chill rain just across the street from his comfortable Headquarters office, read a fragment of Fraternity history that linked December 26, 1848, to December 26, 1973. “It was a wet day with mud underfoot as the persistent drizzle turned into a moist snowfall that quickly melted; and it was this kind of forbidding weather, flooding rivers, and the quagmire of roads that discouraged students . . . from attempting the long journey home for the holidays.”

The guests then trooped across the street to the Fraternity offices for a reception in the ground-floor Alumni Room.

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The Canadian Phi Delta Theta Scholarship Foundation became a corporate body on April 2, 1973. It resulted from George Brigdon’s, Toronto ’52, discussion with Bob Miller about why the Phi Delta Theta Scholarship Foundation awarded no scholarships to worthy Canadian Brothers. “It seemed somewhat ludicrous that contributions by Canadian Brothers to the Scholarship Foundation could not in part go to supporting Phi Delt undergraduates in Canada in their scholastic endeavors.”

As in all things financial, the answer to the perplexing question was simple: taxes. The tax laws of the United States of America did not allow scholarship foundations to grant educational scholarships where the money would be used at educational institutions outside the US. The Canadian Income Tax Act had similar provisions.

To the Canadian mind, there was a simple solution. Create a separate foundation. After some discussion, this was done, and Canadian leaders set out on the interesting journey of collecting and honoring Canadian scholars.

Initially, and for many years, the funds were collected from Canadian brothers during the Annual Appeal to all Phis for support for Headquarters and Scholarship Funds. This was done by distributing the scholarship portion of Canadian alumni donations to the Canadian Foundation, with a proportion of the cost of the appeal being charged to the Canadian Foundation. No direct appeal was made to Canadian brothers (except at Founders Day Banquets) for such donations. The scheme worked well for many years, but the costs of the overall appeal rose over time so that the Canadian portion exceeded the percentage the Canadian Foundation was allowed by tax laws to charge to expenses. The Fraternity was thus eating into the small capital base, which was permitted, by law, to accumulate.

The big operational change came in 1989 when the General Council agreed that the Canadian Foundation could canvas all Phis in Canada at its own expense. Volunteers did work on the campaign, the directors being assisted in mailings, from time to time, by the members of Ontario Alpha. As a result, the Canadian Foundation was able to keep costs down.

Since 1974, the Canadian Foundation has awarded over $400,000 to more than four hundred undergraduates across Canada, all thanks to the generosity of Phi Delt alumni living in Canada.

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In the twenty-fifth year of the Fraternity, at the 1873 Convention in Athens, Ohio, the delegates voted to form a publication committee to plan the editing and publication of “A Monthly Organ.” The convention of 1874 adopted a resolution to publish “A Quarterly Paper.” A prospectus of The Phi Delta Theta Quarterly was issued from Indianapolis on October 17, 1874, containing four pages.

Founder and Editor William Oscar Bates, Butler 1875, published the inaugural issue of our Fraternity magazine. S.J. Tomlinson, Butler 1875, and A.B. Thrasher, Butler 1873, initially assisted him.

The first issue saw the change to the name, The Scroll, and the format, a magazine. Four issues were published in 1874 and three in 1876. Due to a lack of funds, the magazine wouldn’t be published again until September 1878. It was issued as a monthly paper until October 1880, in which it once again reverted to magazine form.

The magazine was printed in nine different locations during the first thirty years. Beginning in February 1904, the Collegiate Press of The George Banta Company published the magazine and continued to do so through the 1990s.

In October 1932, the magazine changed from the long-standing six-by-nine-inch to seven-by-ten. The typeface for the magazine was changed to Baskerville by Edward E. Ruby, Indiana 1897, with his first issue as editor in August 1937. That issue also had a new cover design process with the advent of offset printing which “permits greater variety than letterpress printing.” Also, beginning in the 1930s, the cover design changed with each issue, reflecting the trend of college magazines.

At the 1970 Convention in Washington, DC, the proposal made by then editor John T. ‘Jack’ McDonald, North Dakota ’62, was approved to change the number of issues from five to four.

The magazine once again was updated in the fall of 1972 to standard letter size 8½″ × 11″ paper. This expanded size would allow for more flexibility in layout. The type size was enlarged from 9 pt. to 10 pt. and changed from Baskerville to Schoolbook in 1973. The cover was also upgraded using a wrap-around, heavyweight paper stock that allowed for the use of a second color at an economical price. The Summer 1974 issue was the first ever to use three, four-color photographs: one on the cover and two on the first eight pages.

In the centennial edition of The Scroll, Scroll Editor Bill Dean, Texas Tech ’61, summarized the importance of our Fraternity’s publication: “It has provided the mechanism for communication and understanding through the past 100 years. It has been part of that quality of leadership.

Nine former editors of The Scroll have served on the General Council. Six of these have been president.

The Scroll has weathered many storms. It has seen the Fraternity through five wars, a depression, a struggle for civil rights and civil liberties as well as major social and economic change.

Editors have come and gone. The format has undergone numerous changes. But The Scroll continues today, as in the past, to be a very vital part of Phi Delta Theta.”

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