Rick Neel '73: DTD at MC #31

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Hello everybody,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and didn't blow out any buttons on your pants! In a follow up to the last message where I posted Shawn Selby's letter to the editor of the Rainbow, I have a response from a brother, with his questions concerning the letter. So here is that series of emails.

Rick Kramer wrote:

It has been quite some time since I visited or truly understood the current culture of the house. Since you have recently taken a more active approach to the current events there, I thought I would ask you for your analysis as to the meaning of this public controversy. After reading Shawn's letter I was pleased to understand of his strong stand against discrimination. He is a credit to our chapter.

My question for you is, has it become one of the primary goals of the house culture to be focused on the cause to eliminate discrimination against gays? Does the Marietta College community view the Delt House in this way? Is this a case of Brother Romine from Texas simply showing us intolerance and values from the past that only heterosexual men need apply?

I ask these questions to better understand the current events and issues that the undergraduate brothers are focused upon and the meaning of this public controversy.

Rick Kramer '75


My response to Rick follows. (At this point I have to say that I have referred to Rick as a past president of EY, he isn't. He is a past VP, and I apologize for that misinformation)

I'm going to asnwer you directly, and then I'm sure I'll deal with your question in my next email. Because it is something that affects all of us. I discussed it with Shawn last night. And he asked me what I meant by my comment. I think that for us Alums, especially from our time, it will be an issue due to the conception that the Delts were a gay house at the time we were formed. And how hard we worked to dispel that notion. I suspect that there are some of us who are about as homophobic as Romine is, and that also is a reason that we need to deal with the issue, especially if we are to have an active alumni base (which is something that I'm coming to realize that I'm interested in helping create).

I don't think that it is a part of the chapter program to elimminate discrimination against gays at all. From what I have seen, it isn't an issue at all. When I go to the house for functions I see women all over the place (damn good looking ones at that!). There is little "public displays of affection," by members of either sex.

I think that the chapter has decided that gay/straight is just not an issue at all. They are interested in recruiting quality guys, and that is the bottom line. With 55 members, and some (about 1/2 dozen, I think) being gay I don't see where it is a problem for the house. I get copies of the undergrad meeting minutes every week (you can also if you are interested -- let me know and I'll see about getting you put
on the email list) and the social chairman is quite often (a couple of times a month) reporting that one of the sororities wants to have a social event with us. That in itself is a HUGE change from our years, remember?

Have you read the last couple of issues of the Rainbow? This came about because in the June issue there were several articles about diversity and 2 of them were written by EU men, 1 of which is openly gay. They were well written articles I think. Brother Romine from Texas wrote a letter to the editor in the next issue of the Rainbow (which I inadvertently threw out) saying that EU should be "drummed out" of the fraternity. This is the letter that Shawn was responding to.

I hope that is some help to you. If you have more questions, I'll put you in contact with a person who, hopefully, can help more. Have a good weekend, Rick

I forwarded his letter to Shawn Selby for his information. He sent a note to Rick which follows below:

Hello Rick.

Rick Neel forwarded to me a copy of the email that you sent him. I hope you do not mind that he did that, and I hope he does not mind that I'm emailing you back (I'm copying Rick Neel on this email so that he knows that I'm writing you back!)

I don't recall if I ever met you, but I certainly do remember you from the composites from the early 1970s hanging in the house. I am certainly pleased to have this opportunity to talk with a former Chapter President and a brother alumnus from the Chapter's earlier years!

Thank you for your kind words about my letter and about me. I really do appreciate them. I was/am worried that in responding to defend the Chapter and the beating it has taken from Delt alumni elsewhere that in some ways I might be provoking a war among Epsilon Upsilon's alumni.

But I take my stand on principles. Not just my own principles, but on the Delt Principles.

Even though I'm not an undergraduate, I've spent a good amount of time with the current crop of them in the past year and have gotten to know most of them well. So I'll venture an answer to your question, though I certainly reccommend you ask the Chapter directly. Chapter President Craig Sundstrom would be a good person to start with.

First I'd like to make a general observation. In addition to knowing the young men in the Chapter, I know a lot of young men and women in ranging from 18 to 26. This whole age cohort, it seems, really does not care about people's sexual orientation as an issue.

They've grown up seeing accurate and positive portrayals of gay men and women. They've seen the ugly side of homophobia at an early age (Matthew Shepherd). And they've heard -- and rejected -- the anti-gay rhetoric and tactics of many religous and political leaders. They've seen their gay and lesbian friends come out in high school.

As a whole, they do not buy into the "homosexuality is choice" meme. They understand that gay people are born that way. And they don't like the concept of discriminating against gay people.

That being said, like any large group, just because a majority feel a certain way, there will always be a minority that thinks in the opposite direction.

In the case of fraternities, they have by nature been "conservative" and bastions against "differentness," so it easily understandable if fraternity chapters display or practice homophobia.

In some ways, one could argue that in a setting where a bunch guys are living together almost invites jokes, and that would lead to fraternity members displaying homophobic behavior to counter those jokes. We've all been there, no matter when we were in school.

So to get to the point, the (heterosexual) members of the current chapter come from the perspective that many of their age cohort have: that gay people are no different from straight people; discrimination based on sexual orientation is wrong.

So it has been a mostly easy and natural step for them deal with fellow undergrad brothers coming out as gay, and it has been easy for them to accept gay pledges.

They certainly do not "promote" homosexuality; over 90 percent of them are straight. They just merely accept that a brother's (different) sexual orientation is just merely one facet in their whole personage.

At the same time, I also do not see their acceptance of gay brothers as a mission to fight against discrimnation toward gay people; they are just going about their business of trying build a good, strong chapter and populating it with as many good people as they can find, with no regard to their orientation.

So I think it is to their credit that they are accepting of their gay brothers and have no problem with bidding someone who is gay. But they did not arrive in this place "on purpose" as some kind of goal to achieve. It just happened because it naturally seems right to them.

Any way, I think I'll stop now. I look forward to talking to you more, and hopefully you'll be coming to the 40th anniversary in 2008 and I'll have a chance to greet you in person.

Cheers!

Shawn Selby '92

I think that about covers this subject, so unless I get some more comments about it, I'm going to let it rest.

I have some news about our Blog spot. I hope that you are making some use of it. It is located at: http://mcdeltalumni.blogspot.com/ I'm happy to report that in just over a week, since we updated it, there have been over 100 visits to it. Thanks, Delts! Feel free to leave comments on any post that you read.

We have some new addresses for you to add to your email list. Some of these came with notes. So here goes.

Tom Tintera writes:

Here is a blast from the past, one of the original founding brothers, it makes me sound so old. Life is good in the Northwest, specifically, Hillsboro, Oregon. I graduated from Lewis and Clark Law School in 1981 and began my career as a prosecutor in Hillsboro the next year. I am a Senior Deputy and I have been here 24 years. Married, two kids, 10 acres at the top ridge of Chehalem Mountain (elev 1300 feet), 2 MG's etc.

Brian Dobis sends:

Good to hear from you on the chapter's behalf. Keep me in the loop and I look forward to participating in the festivities!

Brian Dobis '03


Martin "Cowboy" Santini sends this along:

Rick: Yes you emailed the one and only old time Cowboy from the mid-70's. I am still in the Marietta area at Warren Schools, (that's the wl in the e-mail). I hope you are doing fine and living good.

Talk to you soon.

Martin "Cowboy" Santini, class of 1978

To all of you, welcome. Keep us informed as to what you are doing. Remember, we have our annual alumni golf outing coming up in April. The dates for homecoming in 2007 have been announced, as well as the tentative dates for 2008. That is the one we are pointing toward. It will be our 40th anniversary on the Marietta campus. We want a huge turnout, so hold that weekend in October open for DTD. (The dates are listed in my email #30 at the blog).

Here are the rest of the new names for you. They are from a lot of different decades, so hopefully someone you have been looking for will be listed! Justin Nethers '05, Ken Mard '03, Michael Simmons '96, Matt Christman '94, Chris Bennett '92, Peter Noll '86, Jeffrey Osler '82, David Silverstein '79, Gary Boyd '71, David Dessen '69, Greg Maloof '67, Martin Santini '78, Jason Jialanella '03, Brian Dobis '03, John DeVito '71, Tom Tintera '71, Rich Stocks '79, Shea McGrew '79. Our full list is availiable at: ***addresses and link have been removed due to privacy issues. If you need the information, contact me at rneel11@comcast.net***

Take advantage and write to someone you haven't talked to in awhile. It will make them feel good, and you too, I guarantee it!

You all didn't do too well in helping me find the missing Delts that I listed last week, so here are some more. These names are listed in our email list, and I have been getting notices that they are no good for a while now, so you can remove them from your lists. If you can get in touch with them, please get me a current email address. Thanks! Remember, when you change yours let us know. Michael Conaty, John McMenamin, Rich Hruska, Alan Head, Mark Russell, Ric Gough, Joe Baker, and Lance Zant.

Sorry this is so long, hope that you have a good week.

Rick Neel '73

Rick Neel: DTD at MC #30

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Hello everyone,

Today is the day. I'd like to invite everyone to check out our "new and improved" Blog. Hops made the improvements that we asked him to do. I think that you will be very pleased with it.

Thanks for the hard work, Hops.

After spending the last couple of posts concentrating on the new email address list. The address list for it is: ***removed for privacy reasons, contact me at rneel11@comcast.net*** And We have added several new addresses since the last time. So check it if you haven't, and if you have, then I will be posting new addresses at the bottom of this email. These addresses don't appear on our blog, for reasons of privacy. I don't want spammers finding these addresses and loading up the email boxes of the guys. I did get one note from an alumnus, requesting that I remove him from our email lists, this is a first and made me pretty sad. I will, of course, honor his request. If any of you know him, please do honor it also, and don't mention DTD to him if you are in contact with him ... thanks.

Now for some news.

From Shawn Selby we have a letter to the editor of the Rainbow. This letter, in my estimation is probably going to raise a few eyebrows among our chapter, as well as the International fraternity. I think that he expressed his feelings quite well. So here it is:



Dear editor,

I read with a mixture of revulsion and amusement the letter from Brother Thomas B. Romine Jr. (University of Texas, 1948) denouncing "diversity," homosexuals and calling for my Chapter, Epsilon Upsilon at Marietta College, to be "drummed out of the Fraternity."

Wow.

Brother Romine ticks off his laudable achievement of work for the Fraternity seemingly as justification for attacking Epsilon Upsilon's embrace of its openly gay Brothers. However, his long history of involvement with Delta Tau Delta unfortunately seems to illustrate that he has long forgotten the meaning of the Four Fundamental Principles of Deltism, the Ritual and the Oath.

It is just stunning that he would seek to do harm to a group of Brothers he's never met simply because they've embraced their openly gay brothers instead of, say, giving them the "Matthew Shepherd treatment."

I am an alumnus of Epsilon Upsilon. And I am gay. I came out shortly after I graduated in 1992. I have always been comfortable as a gay Delt alumnus because Deltism is not incompatible with being gay. In fact, Delt Principles require that a Delt struggling with his orientation come out. Coming out is an act of Truth, Power, Faith and Courage.

In the nearly 15 years I have been an Epsilon Upsilon alumnus, I have watched, with pride, as the Chapter moved from having attidues about gay people that were more in line with Brother Romine's to where it is today -- among the leaders of our Fraternity in accepting gay members. This in the Fraternity that took a lead in ending hazing and discrimination based on race and religion.

I would like to invite Brother Romine to visit the Brothers of Epsilon Upsilon to get to know them like I have. I am proud to call them friends as well as Brothers. They represent the future of the fraternity; Brother Romine is an emblem of an ugly past.

And as much as Brother Romine's views on homosexuality are set opposite of everything I believe in, I'm proud to be a member of an international Fraternity
that can embrace both someone like him and someone like me.

Are you Delt enough to come to Epsilon Upsilon, Brother Romine?

Shawn Selby
Marietta College, 1992


From Matt Dole, I have some news for you guys that enjoy coming to Marietta for Homecoming. We have the dates of the 2007 weekend, and TENTATIVE dates for the 2008 weekend. That is the one I would like all of you make note of, so you can request the time off! 2008 = EU's 40th anniversary. Be there!



Fellas -

I had a nice talk with Hub Burton (brother Delt Hub Burton) who is the Marietta College Alumni Relations Director today. A couple things came out of that meeting that will interest you -

1. The dates for the 39th anniversary (2007) homecoming are October 19, 20, 21, 2007.

2. The dates for the 40th anniversary homecoming are TENTATIVELY October 24, 25, 26, 2008.

Hub expressed his thoughts that the dates would hold up, but they will not be fnalized until the OAC conference meetings next summer. In the meantime, I told Hub we would offer that date as a "circle on the calendar" type thing, plus we could go ahead and begin talks with a hotel about a block of rooms and a venue for the banquet.

3. Marietta College would like the Greeks to be much more involved in planning and marketing for homecoming. They will be seeking weekend schedules for 2007 for inclusion in the brochures in March. It might be best if we formalize some of our activities for them to include ( i.e. watch the parade, house corps meeting, football game) in the 2007 brochure as a test run for what will surely be the more detailed 2008 schedule.

4. Hub indicated that he is attempting to move the alumni banquet to Friday night, so it might not be a conflict, but I expressed that not many alumni from DTD generally attended so we did not think conflicting Saturday night events would be a tremendous problem.

So now we are ready to move forward. I will be glad to get some quotes on hotel blocks, but will need some sort of rough estimate on people thinking about making the trip - even at this early juncture.


Thanks Matt! As you can see, he is willing to try to negotiate some price breaks with the hotels, but he needs some sort of idea how many rooms will be needed. Any help here will be appreciated. Count on me Matt! I'll be there. (But I bet everyone already realized that, didn't you?)

I mentioned a while back that I had some news from Bob Peterson, from his visit to campus. For more news on that, check out the Marietta College web site. http://www.marietta.edu/ Here is Bob's news.


I have left Marietta, now in Boston visiting my son before heading back to Rome.

My Executive in Residence project went great, the kids did fabulous on their final presentations. All the guys in the project were Delts!

Look forward to doing it again in 2008 and tying it in with our 40th.

We need to have an organized fund drive for the ritual equipment, some nvestigative work needs to be done on our options (buy ready-made or have the current EU brother build it), make a decision on what we plan to do, come up with an estimate, send out a request and tell us where and to whom to mail the checks. I'm ready to write a check but need more info.

The current e-mails I see bouncing around will not get us anywhere. Maybe Fergie and the EU chapter should discuss this and then make recommendations and organize the fund drive. We have a pretty switched on bunch there. I was so proud to be a Delt alumni these past two weeks on campus!

Fraternally,
Bob

This brings me to the last thing that I want to mention this week. The fund drive for new ritual equipment. It isn't going as well as I would have hoped. Especially with all of the interest that seems to be out there. So I talked to Fergie, because I was afraid it got stuck in committee (and you know what that means!). Here is what he told me:


I talked to Craig on Monday night and he is working on getting the info together; however, he was sick Monday. I will give Ashley a heads up and get things rolling a little more. He got reelected Guide by the way.


So hopefully more information should be coming our way shortly. But don't let that stop you from sending in a donation. The place to send it is to: Crescent Colony of Marietta, Inc. and send it to Bob Ferguson, 507 Wooster St., Marietta, Ohio 45750. Please make note on your check that it is for the ritual fund. Thank you all a lot.

For some bad news, one of our alumni has joined the Chapter Eternal. I don't have any details on the car accident. Nor do I know when it happened. But Brother Fritz Absolon, 1980, has passed away.

I, unfortunately, have several addresses that appear to be no good that appear on your email address list. Next week I will be deleting them and asking for your help in getting good addresses.

This week I am asking for help with the following Brothers: Help me out here, Steve Newton '66, Steve Critchlow '72, David Mogill '77, Jeffrey Myers '81, Jim Bailey '88, Dan Moorman '92, Brent Blackburn '97, Colin Orsini '02, and Joshua Harris '08.

That's all I have for this message. Have a good week.

Rick Neel '73

Shawn Selby '92: New look coming Is here!

Monday, November 13, 2006

Dear Brothers:

Hasn't Rick been doing an incredible job? Go ahead, give him a big round of applause. Don't feel stupid sitting at your computer clapping your hands. You know you want to. And if we all do it at the same time, well it might just heard by ... someone in the next room!

But seriously, Rick has been providing excellent content here at this Blog. We originally set it up as a place that would serve as an archive for his emails so that Brothers, as they are added to the email list, could be able to come here and read up on his previous emails.

This Blog has proved popular. So popular that Rick graciously agreed to allow it to become the de facto "official unofficial" EU Alumni Web site. As such, you will periodically see postings from Crescent Colony (House Corporation) President Jon Hartshorn as well as messages from Chapter Adviser Robert "Fergie" Ferguson and from various Undergraduate Delts.

But as good, and as popular as this site is, I can't escape one fundamental truth: This site is ugly. Butt ugly. I-can't-believe-I-spent-the-night-with-her/him ugly. Dan-Moorman-without-a-shirt ugly. UGLY.

I'm a damn good newspaper designer, but I don't know how to do HTML, the coding that is used to build Web pages like this.

But fortunately we've found an Undergrad Brother who can, and we cast a spell on him to do our bidding in putting some lipstick on this pig.

The aforementioned Undergrad is Adam "Hops" Hopkins. He is a sophomore from Chesterland, Ohio, and he's majoring in accounting and finance. He's also the Chapter's Web master. And early next semester, he's taking office as the Chapter's corresponding secretary.

I gave him some instructions on how I would like the site to look and he has developed a prototype template. And it looks good. Rick and I have reviewed it and have asked him to do some tweaking with it. After that is done, the new template will be transfered to this site and we will bid a not-so-fond farewell to the Blogger design template that we've been using so far.

So Adam, thanks in advance for your work to give us a new look. And your first job when you become an alumnus will be to become the Alumni Web Master and set up the future www.mariettadelts.org Web site!

Look for an email from Rick announcing that the design has been implemented.

Cheers!

Shawn Selby '92

Rick Neel '73: DTD at MC #29

Good afternoon everyone,

I am happy to let you all know that the release of our email list has produced some good results already. There have been several addresses that I've received to add to the list. I'll print them at the end of this email so you can update your list.

Lance Koved sent me the following note, so I thought "What the heck, I'll go look." And I found 37 new names. Imagine how it works when you have a complete list of the EY men! I'm not sure how many of the addresses are still accurate so I won't list them for a week or so.

Here's his note:



Rick - thanks for the work. I know you will find more email addresses at the Marietta alumni site.

We just completed our move to Florida. I decided to continue to work for a while so I am flying north almost weekly. Keeps me out of trouble.

Lance




Hi Rick,

Greg Maloof is Class of '67. Dr. Robert Jones is not a Marietta graduate - he had degrees from Queens University in Toronto and Harvard. Tom Robinson is deceased. I am attempting to get you emails for John DeVito and Rob Weidenfeld. I keep in Christmas card contact with each of them. I do not see Tom Tinterra '71 on the list. You have all of my other email contacts.
Ken Kavula '69


The note from Ken is nice, since it means that shortly we will have 2 more names.

To the new people that are getting this email for the first time, I have several reasons for writing. The original reason was my desire to have a HUGE turnout for our chapter's 40th anniversary which is in 2008. Please keep that in mind so we can have a great anniversary. Hard as it is to comprehend, there are now over 400 initaited EU Delts. We have over 200 names in our email address book, and that number is growing. You can help by forwarding this email to the brothers you have remained in contact with and asking them to contact me.

My other reasons for doing this are that I wanted to give the Alumni a place to keep track of each other, so if you have life news you would like to share, let me know and I'll pass it along. Also, to keep DTD in your thoughts.

We have set up a blog for back copies of my emails, the address is: http://mcdeltalumni.blogspot.com/ And the link to our email addresses are: [Link removed for privacy reasons. Email rneel11@comcast.net to receive a copy of the link].

Please save that address and make use of the addresses that are there. Contact those brothers that you haven't been in contact with for all those years!

Check out the Chapter's Web site, they have reworked it and made a big improvement: http://www.marietta.edu/~delts/ Be sure to check out the Protimoi, which is the alumni newsletter.

Have a good week,

Rick Neel '73

P.S. I have decided that I will not list the new email addresses that I get on the blog due to a need to respect the privacy of the Delts involved. If you miss an update and need it, please contact me. Thanks for understanding. Rick

Rick Neel '73: DTD at MC #28

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Hello everyone,

Here it is, finally completed. I hope that you find it as spectacular as I did. What is "it" you ask? Well, "it" is our email directory. Hops, put it together in two ways. He did it by class year and also alphabetically.

At any rate, I don't intend to comment much on this message. I do hope that you all appreciate what Undergrad Adam "Hops" Hopkins went through to get this put together for us.


Here it is:

... the email list should be ready to go, along with the pages on the website. I talked to Ferg and he said to take off the members who were expelled, which I did. I think the best way to send it out is to insert a hyperlink in the email because I think some emails won't receive it because they may think of it as spam. I've added the exact hyperlink below, which I think is probably the easiest way. ****(From Rick: I decided not to put the link in, due to privacy issues - if you need the link, contact me at: rneel11@comcast.net )****
Let me know if you have any other ideas,
Hops


I suspect that Hops has no idea how important this list is to us older guys. But in about 20 years he'll understand. While you are looking at the list, please look at your friends and if you can fill in any of the blanks, please help. Call the ones you know, and get the email addresses. They all help. One last thing, PLEASE let us know when you change email addresses.

Enjoy!!!
Rick Neel '73

Rick Neel: DTD at MC #27

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Hello everyone,

I have a couple of new email addresses for this email, so welcome to Ken Kavula, Ron Rees, and Mike Lowe (listed in order of graduation - I think!). If you guys are curious as to what I'm talking about, old issues of these emails can be found at: http://mcdeltalumni.blogspot.com/

I've been talking about raising some money for new ritual equipment for a couple of emails now, and I have had several people send me notes with questions. Here are a few of them.

Is it possible to cut to the chase and give us a ballpark figure for the whole set?

If Darrell can make some of the equipment (better no doubt) and we can "help a brother contribute his share via labor" then that would be great, too. Just get us all a number and I'll bet the brothers get the money to you or Fergie in fairly short order.
Rick Kramer '75


Rick,

A question or two:

The "package" of ritual equipment we can purchase from national, does that include everything or is there still "other items" that need to be purchased in addition. Also once we reach the required amount (which should be easily met as you have stated) Is there something else we can then funnel the remainder of cash towards -- say a foosball table or grill, etc?

Bob Simerlink '89


Bob Peterson wrote: " ... We need to have an organized fund drive for the ritual equipment, some investigative work needs to be done on our options (buy ready made or have the current EU brother build it), make a decision on what we plan to do, come up with an estimate, send out a request and tell us where and to whom to mail the checks. I'm ready to write a check but need more info ... ."

He had more to say, mostly about his time as an Executive in Residence, but I'll include that in the next email.

Chris Goebel wrote:
...I have a quick question that you probably have emailed me 100 times but where and to whom do we make out the check for a donation? Sorry if you already made this information available.

Talk to you soon,

Chris '87


So OK you know what I have been hearing from you guys about this project, and I am very happy that so many are interested in replacing the equipment. Here are some answers for you.

Fergie wrote:
I talked to Chapter President Craig Sundstrom and told him along with the Guide & VP to review all the equipment and determine what we need. All the specs are in the ritual book. One thing we do need is a chair for the President. We can research and find out what we want. Also, I talked to Central Office and they do not stock any ritual equipment. Just thought I would bring you up to speed on my findings. Fergie

I also spoke to Brian Ashton, an undergrad who contacted the Central Office on his own. He gave me the following information (over the phone so you have to hope I have a decent memory!) There is no prepackaged ritual equipment (as Fergie also told us) so we can have our equipment as plain or as ornate as we wish. Some chapters have a marble top on the altar, some have a plain setup such as what we have. Some have the columns made out of a material whereby lighting it at the bottom, the whole column lights up, rather than just the globe. Some chapters have special chairs for all of the officers (again Fergie mentioned this), some don't. The crescent can be as plain or as ornate as we wish. The same can be said about the carpet and shield.

Craig Sundstrom, the Chapter President, sent this:
All of the specifics (dimensions and materials) are included in the Ritual book. If we were to find someone to construct a particular part of the equipment, I believe that those dimensions could be given out for those purposes. As far as I know, the key with the "secret" side of the equipment is to be sure to refrain from revealing the significance of each piece. For example, we carry the equipment right through the hotel lobby when preparing for Ritual at a conference or Karnea, because onlookers do not have any understanding of our Ritual and the ways in which we use the equipment.


So I guess that we can either do it ourselves or hire someone to make it for us, the key being that they not know the significance of what they are building. I suspect that the original men built the equipment without knowing what it was for.

Brian also had a thought that I liked, though I'm not inclined that way. He suggested that we make this a joint project for the Alumni and the Undergraduates, and make the equipment during the spring golf weekend or next fall's homecoming. I really liked that idea, even though the thought of that many Delts in a room with power tools is a bit scary (Shawn Selby put that mental picture in my mind, thanks Shawn!). What do you guys think? James Kane offered to build us a new altar himself. James, I guess that your kind offer will have to wait for a bit ... but don't you think that I have forgotten.

I hope that answers most of the questions that you all have, if any more pop into your heads, let me know and I will get you an answer. In the meantime, keep sending your checks to: Crescent Colony of Marietta Inc. Care of Bob Ferguson, 507 Wooster St., Marietta, Ohio 45750 Make note on the check that it is for ritual equipment.

By the way, we are almost ready to release the email address file for all of you. I spoke to Undergrad Adam Hopkins yesterday and he is about done with it. I can't wait.

Have a good weekend.

Rick Neel '73