On May 18 board President John Ballinger pounded the gavel and opened the May monthly meeting. In attendance was Jerry Waters, recently named Seven Lights Alumni, who announced his retirement as board secretary after 12 years of service. Some of the highlights of the meeting are:
1. For the first time in many years the Chapter House will be open during the summer, and about a dozen undergraduates will be living in.
2. There was much discussion about the pandemic and its potential effect on the Active Chapter.
3. At present there are hand sanitizer dispensers at each exterior door, and each day all commonly touched surfaces are sanitized with disinfectant.
4. A draft of the COVID-19 Policy for the Chapter House was discussed and approved.
5. Chapter Advisor Dusty Lacefield suggested writing letters to all Active Chapter brothers and their parents detailing the steps being taken to insure the Chapter House is safe. A copy of the COVID-19 Policy will be included. Click here to view letter: Letter to Parents Click here to view COVID-19 Policy EX COVID-19 Policy
6. A paragraph has been added to the Active Chapter and individual leases that details the COVID-19 policies.
Nominations for House Corporation officers for the 2020-2021 fiscal year were opened, and the following brothers were elected:
President, John Ballinger
Vice President, Darin Tockey
Secretary, Mark Springer
Treasurer/CFO, Evan Selander
Chief Technology Officer, Titus Moore

Brother Jerry Waters was selected for this prestigious award on May 8, 2020. It is presented to alumni brothers who have demonstrated significant service to the Fraternity, and the Seven Lights Alumni Award is limited to 28 alumni annually. Eligible recipients must have served at least 10 years as an active alumnus.

Initiated with the 62-F pledge class with some great brothers including Tom Gist, Gary Kuhl, John Mitchell, Gary Renner and Significant Sig Colin Kelly, Jerry has been an active member of our alumni chapter since his graduation from Fresno State. One of his many contributions is his service as a member of the House Corporation board since 2008. President of the board, John Ballinger 65-S, describes Jerry’s function on the board as being like the 4077th MASH Unit’s Radar O’Reilly. As John says, “Not only has he performed his duties with passion and diligence, he has been one of our most dependable board members.  I can always rely on him to help out when needed.”

Jerry joins Epsilon Eta’s other Seven Lights Alumni, Henry Brock 62-F awarded in 2014 and Brad Fischer 78-S awarded in 2018. Congratulations, Jerry, for this well-deserved recognition by our International Fraternity! All honor to his name.

Brad Fischer, 78-S, has been awarded the prestigious Jay E. Minton Best Alumni Chapter Officer Award by Sigma Chi International.  Jerry Nelson, Chairman, Alumni Awards Committee and a personal friend of our late brother Steve Heinrichs, 65-F, announced the award in an email on May 8, 2020.  

The award is given to only one Sigma Chi alumni chapter officer each year.  It was created in 1928, and in 1975 it was named in honor of Order of Constantine Sig Jay E. Minton Sr., Missouri-Columbia 1920, past alumni chapter officer and vice president of the Order of Constantine. The award recognizes outstanding leadership, administration, Fraternity relations and service, effectiveness and improvement by an officer in his alumni chapter.

Brad has been recognized often for his many contributions to our chapter over the decades.  He started accumulating them as a pledge by earning the Outstanding Pledge award in 1978.  While an undergraduate he served as Kustos in 1978 and Annotator in 1979.

A few of Brad’s accomplishments are as follows:

• Named Top Dog at Fresno State in 2014
• Received the Grand Consul’s Citation
• Named a Seven Lights alumnus by Sigma Chi International in 2018

Brad expanded the role of Chapter President by also being the link between all of the various committees and functions of our chapter so that nothing occurs in a vacuum.  He regularly attends the monthly House Corporation meetings plus engages often with our Chapter Advisor, Dusty Lacefield, 12-F.  Brad was especially effective when he assisted Dusty and the chapter’s Consul, Gio Primavera, 17-F, last year during negotiations with the university following an incident relating to assaults on students perpetrated by the Fresno State football team.  The end result was that two of the three alleged active chapter violations were dropped both posing existential threats. 

Brad joined the Board of Directors of the Alumni Chapter 2004 and served in the following capacities:

• Treasurer beginning in 2006-2008 and 2014 to present
• Vice President 2008-2014
• President from 2012 to present

About eight years ago Brad started the June Brotherhood Day at the Chapter House which is now an annual social event drawing seventy-five active and alumni brothers to the house. The alumni chapter underwrites the cost of lunch that day, and we now use it as a platform to announce chapter awards.

Brad also initiated the first annual Sigma Chi Wine Tasting six years ago that raised $15,000 last year for our local scholarship endowment which now totals almost $900,000.  Even though the wine event is capped at one hundred participants, the amount raised continues to significantly increase each year. 

Past Fresno Sig recipients of the Jay E. Minton award were Richard Swartz, Sigma Tau, awarded in 1953, and Tony Flores, 56-S, awarded in 2014.

Thanks to Brother Brad for all of the time and energy he devotes to our fraternity, and congratulations to him for being selected as the 2020 Jay E. Minton Best Alumni Chapter Officer Award.  All honor to his name!

IHSW,

Mike Patton 63-S
President, Fresno Sigma Chi Endowment Board

Scholarship Chairman Brother Christian Reta, (18-F), held a scholarship workshop on February 24, 2020 to help Active Chapter brothers apply online for the (21) $2,000 scholarships available for the fall 2020/spring 2021 school year.  The deadline for applications is March 1.

For the first time pledges were allowed to apply also.  The total monies available from our five endowments is a record $38,000.  In addition many brothers successfully applied for the Dante Simi scholarship which awards a total of $10,000 annually, and Sigma Chi brothers have preference along with graduates of Dante’s Learn for Life charter schools.

Many of our undergraduate brothers at Fresno State achieve academic excellence.  The seven brothers with the highest chapter GPAs for the fall 2019 semester are: Consul Gio Primavera (4.0), Scholarship Chairman and Smittcamp Scholar Christian Reta (4.0), Leo Reyes (4.0), Arvin Sihota (4.0), Johnathan Zamora (4.0), Chapter Editor and Smittcamp Scholar Micah Gross (3.8) and Derby Daddy Christian DeFendis (3.75).  The White Cross has gained luster by their academic excellence.  It is this kind of performance that encourages alumni to continue supporting our endowments.

The monies raised for the endowments are from contributions received from alumni members over the years. As of January 1, 2020, five separate endowments have raised a total of $821,467. The scholarship funds are from the interest earned by the endowments in 2019.  The endowments were created because alumni wanted a way to recognize, encourage and reward academic excellence and leadership as well as contributions to the brotherhood of Sigma Chi.

Founded on June 28, 1855 by seven undergraduates at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, Sigma Chi’s core values are “Friendship, Justice & Learning.” There now are 242 Sigma Chi Active Chapters at Colleges and Universities across North America. In 2021, the Fresno State Active & Alumni Chapters will celebrate their 100th Anniversary at the University.

On Tuesday February 11, 2020, George L. Hooper, KANSAS STATE 1960, Chair Warden, Sigma Chi Monuments and Memorials Commission conducted the White Rose Ceremony at the memorial to Harry St. John Dixon, VIRGINIA CONSTANTINE CHAPTER, 1961.

Pictured Brothers in attendance (l to r): Sam Mann (91-S), Warden, Dixon Memorial; Bill Robinson (70-F), Secretary of the Alumni Chapter of Fresno; Order of Constantine, Tom Downing (62-F), ; Brad Fischer (78-S), President, Alumni Chapter of Fresno; George L. Hooper, Warden, Monuments and Memorials Commission; Dusty Lacefield (12-F), Epsilon Eta Chapter Advisor; Julian Ramos (09-S); Charles Kent; Bruce Edmonston, President, Alumni Association of Kern County; Donald P. Copeland, Warden of the Bell Monument and President of the San Francisco Chapter and Rod Gavorian (76-S).

The monument dedicated by the Order of Constantine Sigs of the Epsilon Eta Chapter is located in the Mountain View Cemetery in Fresno California. Harry St John Dixon founded the Constantine Chapter with a small band of dedicated Sigs outside of Atlanta Georgia on September 17. 1864.

In the years that followed the war, he settled in Fresno County where he became the fifth County Clerk and later served as the City of Fresno’s first City Attorney. He also was the first President of the Fresno County Bar Association. He passed away on August 27, 1899.

As a delegate to the 1860 Grand Chapter, he was elected the 1st Grand Chi or Grand Pro-Consul, was the 1st Grand Historian, re-worked the Sigma Chi Ritual, founded Alpha Beta (Berkeley) Chapter in 1886 and installed the Stanford and U.S.C. Chapters.