Shawn Collins' Blog

Affiliate marketing and other stuff from Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit.

Cisco, Sanford and Son, a Payphone, and Post-it Notes

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It was summer 1991, and the lease on my Knox Box apartment was up. I hadn’t renewed it because I was moving into the fraternity house for the next year. So, I crashed at the frat with a few other guys until Hell Week was set to start and we would settle into our rooms.

My temporary home was room 13, right there when you walked through the front door of the house. During the semesters, this was the first stop for many people when they came to the house, and the summer was no different, except there were far fewer people around.

Room 13 at PiKA

When I wasn’t working my summer jobs at Cluck-U Chicken or Campus Rec, I was hanging around with guys at the house. My typical downtime fun was having a 40- or 64-oz bottle of Private Stock malt liquor and a bottle of Cisco (a very strong, disgusting fortified wine) and watching some TV with the guys.

That summer, it seemed like Sanford and Son was always on, so I think I saw every episode a couple or three times. One day I was enjoying a marathon of Fred Sanford’s antics with Lance, and when the drinks kicked in, I decided I really needed to call my girlfriend.

There were no working phones in the house, so I had to gather all my change and walk across the street to a payphone. I was so psyched to talk to her as I dropped my coins into the phone. I excitedly punched in her number, which was long-distance, so I think it was like $1.50 or more for the first few minutes of the call.

My heart was beating fast as the phone rang on the other end. Then an unfamiliar voice said, “Hello.” I asked if my girlfriend was there, and the person on the other end said I had the wrong number, and they hung up.

That was it. I spent what little money I had on that call, and I was left deflated.

Then I got a great idea. I was the Secretary for the Interfraternity Council (IFC) at the time, so I hopped on my bike and rode over to the student union to call her from the IFC office. As I pedaled across the University of Maryland campus, I kept repeating her phone number in my head to be sure I got it right this time.

It was less than a mile on my bike, so after my quick ride, I locked up my bike and headed into the office. I speed-walked to the phone with a smile on my face, punched in the correct number this time, and prepared to chat.

The answering machine picked up, and I left her a message dejectedly. She had no way to call me back, so I probably wouldn’t talk to her until she came back to campus to get ready for sorority rush.

Oh well, I didn’t want this trip to be in vain, so I fired up the office computer and played Sim City for a while. After I got bored of that, I decided to head back for more hang time. On the way out the door, I saw a big stack of Post-it Notes and grabbed as many as I could for no particular reason.

I got on my bike and pedaled back across campus with one hand holding a bunch of Post-it Notes. All was well until I headed downhill on McKeldin Mall and veered off the sidewalk. With one hand on the handlebar, I went head over ass and landed in a heap.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in bed, and it was nearly midnight. Lots of hours had passed, and I guess I made it back to the frat on autopilot and climbed into bed with bloody arms and legs.

My bike made it home with me, but the Post-it Notes got lost along the way. Everyone else must have been out at the bars, so I climbed back into bed to go to sleep for the night.

My Bloody Valentine, Beer, and Decades of Rats

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You never know when some random moment is going to turn into a thing you talk about for the rest of your life. For Pat and me, it was when we watched the 1981 slasher flick, My Bloody Valentine.

Pat Curran and Shawn Collins

We were new brothers in Pi Kappa Alpha at the University of Maryland, and there was a low-key get-together with a sorority where everyone drank beer and watched the original version of My Bloody Valentine.

I think it was a double-feature with a Diceman concert at Madison Square Garden.

My Bloody Valentine

Anyhow, the Coors beer was flowing from our house bar, and we were tossing back our drinks and enjoying the ridiculous horror film.

Those movies were fun because they were gory, but also silly and campy. I prefer that old slasher style over the shock and gore of current horror.

Anyhow, if you’re not familiar with the movie, it takes place in the small town of Valentine Bluffs, and the residents are planning the first Valentine’s dance in twenty years.

You see, the Valentine’s dance had been banned for a couple of decades after a deranged minder went on a murder spree in town and left the hearts of victims in gift boxes.

The young locals weren’t scared of this old story, though, and they wanted to celebrate, so they held a secret party deep in the nearby coal mine, and the kids were stalked and murdered by someone in full miner’s gear.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I won’t say any more, except for the pivotal scene when some characters were terrified in the coal mine and heard a noise. One of the people said something along the lines of, “Don’t worry, those are just some rats.”

Another future victim responded passionately, “That ain’t no rats.”

The line may have been slightly different, but I am not going to rewatch it to verify.

From then on, Pat and I would use “That ain’t no rats” as a greeting and random shout to each other on campus and at parties. We don’t see each other as much anymore, but when we do, we quote My Bloody Valentine.

My last text to him was a week ago, with a video of a rat in a pizza parlor and the text, “Ain’t no.”

Cult of Personality and My First University of Maryland Homecoming

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I was a freshman in fall 1988 at the University of Maryland at College Park, and I pledged Pi Kappa Alpha that semester.

My pledge class had to dedicate a lot of time from Monday, October 10, through Saturday, October 15, 1988, setting up and cleaning after parties, participating in Homecoming activities, and holding seats at the stadium for the Homecoming football game between our Maryland Terrapins and Wake Forest.

The Terps lost that Homecoming game 27-24, bringing their record to 5-6.

Before Homecoming week started, each pledge had to buy a T-shirt, and I still have mine. The overall theme that year was “Out of This World,” and our matchup was with Kappa (KK?) and AGR (A??).

My 1988 University of Maryland homecoming t-shirt

During our various competitions, like volleyball and a float we built for the Homecoming parade, we had a simple chant that is still an earworm for me…

Are we psyched?

Yes, we are!

PiKA, Kappa, AGR!

It was a lot of fun having daily parties, and some days we’d have a happy hour and a party at night. This was one of those weeks when I just forgot about class, and it helps explain my 1.0 GPA that semester.

Right below the words “Out of This World” on the front of my t-shirt, there is a hole. That hole was where my pledge pin had been, and it was ripped off my shirt by some drunk brother. I no longer have the pin, but the hole has reminded me all these years later.

That was the second time in two weeks that a brother ripped my pledge pin off. The week before, I had to go to PAB (Pledge Advisory Board) to explain myself after getting arrested at our pledge camping trip.

After going through the frat kangaroo court, I had my pledge pin ripped off and was told I was kicked out of my pledge class. I came back to the football tailgate the next morning and got my pin back. I was never actually kicked out. Just some of the drunk hazing mind games.

Anyhow, the thing I most remember from the night of PAB was that it got in the way of a free MTV concert outside of my dorm with the Godfathers and Living Colour.

As I got closer to my dorm after PAB, I could hear the music blasting, but I wasn’t up for standing in the crowd at that point. I thought I was bounced from the frat. But I loved those bands.

When I got to my room, 8151 Cumberland facing La Plata Beach, I opened my window right as Living Colour was playing “Cult of Personality.”

Look in my eyes, what do you see?

Cult of personality

I know your anger, I know your dreams

I’ve been everything you want to be

I’m the cult of personality

That was pretty apt for my night at the hands of the brothers. And the whole pledging semester.

Fraternity Rag Sheets: Brotherly Love and Hate

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It was the fall 1988 Christmas/Graduation party at the Pi Kappa Alpha chapter at the University of Maryland, where I first saw a fraternity rag sheet. As brothers and their dates mingled and downed drinks, a pile of photocopied, stapled pages appeared.

After my graduation party speech and some cheap bubbles

The front page read, “The Four Pi’s,” and everyone raced over to read the latest edition, which was written by the graduating seniors to roast the brothers who still had more time left in college.

Now, I have the old copies of ragsheets, but I am not going to show the contents of them, because most of the stuff in there didn’t age well.

But the issues of the Four Pi’s typically had columns of what was “In” and “Out” for that semester, as well as “clubs” that made fun of brothers for how they dressed, dumb stuff they’d done, where they would be in ten years, etc.

One of those predictions that was pretty close was for Scott Van Pelt, and it said he’d be doing color commentary on NBC. About ten years after graduation, he was finishing a stint on the Golf Channel and off to ESPN, where he still is today.

As I paged through that first issue I’d seen, I saw my name came up in the “America’s Most Wanted Club,” because I’d gotten arrested at our pledge camping trip.

My collection of Pi Kappa Alpha rag sheets

The issues of the Four Pi’s that came out at the fall graduation parties had the typical trash talk, as well as “stocking stuffer,” where the seniors left things behind for brothers.

I was usually a little anxious at the graduation parties about what might be in the rag sheets about me.

Typically, the worst I got was being on a list of guys who were “whipped” by their girlfriends. There were funny digs here and there towards me, but some other guys would get destroyed by words.

By the time the graduation party for spring 1993 came around, I was happy to get my chance to work on the Four Pi’s with the other graduating seniors, and we put out the biggest edition during my time in the house. We had lots to say.

In the end, there were laughs, feelings hurt, and memories.

My Hypocritical Role in a Responsible Drinking Greek Organization

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My experience at the University of Maryland was akin to one of Winston Churchill’s speeches. Specifically a radio address he gave in October 1939 about World War II when he said, “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma…”

Shawn Collins using a weird two hand chug method

You see, I spent a lot of my five years as an undergrad drinking alcohol to a stupid degree. The blackout kind where I wouldn’t remember what happened the night before.

Sometimes, it was due to hazing. There were times when I had to drink lots of cheap gin through a beer bong. Some of those nights ended with me passing out in random patches of grass on campus.

As I got older, I matured a little, and only occasionally did really stupid things like stumbling around on the roof of the frat house or shooting out the windows of a neighboring apartment.

But I also did a lot of extracurricular things that a responsible student would do, such as running a newspaper, working multiple jobs to pay for college, and holding a variety of offices.

One of those roles was as the Public Relations Chair of GAMMA. (Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol). I was aware of the irony at the time, but I also wanted to do some good, add to my resume, and be a positive representative of Pi Kappa Alpha.

In the spring of 1990, the University of Maryland chapter of GAMMA ran a fundraiser for SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), and we raised more money than any other university in the country.

This milestone resulted in representatives from GMAC and Pontiac presenting University of Maryland President Kirwan with a $15,000 check for the Student Activities Fund during halftime of the homecoming football game.

GAMMA at University of Maryland football game

GMAC presents a check to GAMMA

It was exciting to win the top prize and have that fat check go to the Student Activities Fund. On a sidenote, it’s cool to look back and see the smaller Byrd Stadium before all of the additions in later years. Look at that packed crowd!

Also, in the fall of 1990, I organized a GAMMA kickball tournament to publicize National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week. It was open to all student groups, and I promoted it across campus kiosks and dorms, but only fraternity and sorority pledge classes entered.

GAMMA Kickball Tournament

While I had hoped for non-Greek representation in the tournament, it was still a lot of wholesome, alcohol-free fun. And the Pi Kappa Alpha pledge class won the whole tournament.

I don’t have the scoresheet handy, but if I recall correctly, team captain Joe Vettori had the game-winning kick with a bases-clearing double.

I’d like to think that my involvement in GAMMA and other groups on campus provided some karmic balance to my dopey hijinks.

This post originally appeared at fraternitypledge.com.

Cisco, Private Stock, BB Guns, and Police

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Hank was my big brother in Pi Kappa Alpha, and we hung out a lot in college and sometimes got into mischief. This one night in August 1990 was one of those times.

Shawn and Hank PiKA Christmas Formal 1989

It was the day that two new roommates were moving in with my friend John and me to our Knox Box. There was Chris, who was in PiKA, and his friend and future PiKA, Dan from back home.

Nothing much was going on, so Hank and I picked up a couple of 40s of Private Stock malt liquor (“The malt liquor with the imported taste”) and two bottles of Cisco (aka Liquid Crack).

Cisco would get us pretty blitzed by itself, but it was rough to drink down, so we chased it with malt liquor to make things easier and to enhance our buzz journey.

I think Chris and Dan must have gone to sleep early, because they were already in bed when the Cisco and Private Stock kicked in. In our altered states, Hank and I decided it would be a good idea to take out our BB guns.

Now, since I spent 1989 doing 500 hours of community service, you might think I’d try to avoid doing stupid things that could get me in trouble. That was usually the case, but the combination of Cisco and Private Stock would take me to a place where bad ideas sounded awesome.

So, we had our BB guns, and there was some beef with the guys in the apartment just over a hedge from us. They weren’t home; we were bored, and one of us thought it would be fun to open a window in the living room and take aim at the other apartment.

My conservative estimate is that we unloaded 100 or more BBs into that apartment. The windows were like Swiss cheese. So was their TV. We had a time, and it only stopped when we heard people coming back from the bars.

We quickly closed the window and turned off the lights as the yelling started from these guys, who had walked in on what looked like the crazy shooting scene at the end of True Romance.

That was the end of the carnage. Hank headed off to his apartment, and I planned to get some sleep after hiding my BB gun under some dirty laundry.

But shortly after, there was loud knocking on our front door. I figured it was the neighbors, so I messed up my hair like I’d been sleeping for a long time and walked out, rubbing my sleepy eyes, to answer the door.

It wasn’t the neighbors. It was an officer from the College Park (MD) Police Department. I guess the neighbor guys concluded that only our apartment had the line of sight to obliterate their windows.

I answered the door and turned on the living room lights. The police officer walked in and asked if I had been shooting BBs at my neighbor’s apartment. I acted appalled that he would even ask me that question.

Then, he glanced down at our coffee table, which happened to have dozens of loose BBs on it.

He looked at me, and then at the BBs, and back at me again. I scrambled to come up with a good story.

“One of my roommates just moved out. He worked at a bike shop (which was true), and he sometimes worked on bikes in the apartment. Those are ball bearings from bikes.”

What a horseshit story, but he bought it. He left, and I went to sleep.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The next day, I started getting phone calls from the landlord of the apartment next door. I answered the first time, and he was screaming and yelling that he would have to hire a glazier (I had to look in my Webster’s Dictionary to find out what that was).

I denied it and said it must have been someone hiding behind the hedges, but I hadn’t seen anything because I was sleeping. I hung up, and it was over as far as I was concerned.

The calls didn’t stop, but they did go straight to our answering machine after that. The landlord was increasingly hostile and threatening. He claimed he ran a ballistics test, and the BBs in the apartment he owned matched our “ball bearings.” I knew that was not true because the officer hadn’t taken any of our BBs with him, and I walked up to 7-Eleven and threw them all out the next day.

So, I did what any Gen X delinquent would do… I made a mixtape of a bunch of Hank and my favorite punk and new wave songs. In between the songs, I put clips from the voicemails.

Eventually, the landlord gave up trying to collect money for the damages, and I largely behaved for the rest of that year that I lived in the Knox Box before moving on to the fraternity house.

Welcome to the Knox Box, Chris and Dan. Thanks for not moving out the next day.

The Day a Car Hit a Fraternity Brother

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On a sunny fall morning in 1991, sirens jolted me awake. I nearly fell out of my loft bed in room 7 of the University of Maryland’s Pi Kappa Alpha house, scrambling wildly to see what the chaos was about.

Why Ask Why, a Bud Dry Slogan, and a rush shirt in the 90s

The scene outside didn’t look good. Someone was on the ground in front of a car, surrounded by flashing police, fire, and EMS vehicles. A crowd of Pi Kappa Alpha brothers spilled out onto the street and lawn.

I rushed downstairs to get more information and find out what happened. It was one of our brothers in the street, and I heard that the guys had been playing football on the front lawn, and he ran into the street to catch a ball. At the same time, a car was driving up Knox Road and hit him.

Outside the house, everyone seemed concerned and tried to get details from the first responders, but inside, the vibe was different. The guys were laughing as they peeked out the windows from the chapter room at the chaotic scene.

That was strange to me, but then I walked over to a bunch of brothers who were huddled around a video camera. They had captured the accident on film and were playing it back.

But why did they think it was funny that one of our brothers was hit by a car?

Well, it turns out it was all planned. They’d even filmed a couple of test runs. I hadn’t noticed when I went outside, but it was also one of our brothers who was driving the car.

The whole thing was faked. I watched and then got the real story. The brother who was hit by the car was supposed to go to National Guard duty for the weekend, and he wanted to get out of it so he could go to a sorority formal.

These idiots all got together and thought it was a good idea to fake a car accident, so this brother could get out of his obligations with the National Guard. And they were ridiculous enough to film it.

So insane and shortsighted to have probably all of the first responders for the town to mobilize for this fake accident.

Greek life detractors love to say that fraternity and sorority members buy their friends. Well, I would like to get a refund on some of them.

Originally published at https://shawncollins512.substack.com.

How I Managed to Break My Nose in College (Without Being in a Fight)

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It was the night of Friday, October 30, 1992, and we didn’t have a party going on at the fraternity that night. So, I got a handful of brothers and the pledge class and headed to the Cellar, a beer bar at the University of Maryland that was the easiest to get into for underage students.

Shawn Collins and Joe Incaprera on Halloween

The bar was pretty dead when we got there, and we took turns buying pitchers and dancing. After an hour or so, more people started filtering in, and the dance floor got increasingly more crowded.

I was a few beers in and feeling good when a fist came out of nowhere and smashed me square on the nose. I never saw it coming. This guy who threw the sucker punch never said a word to me.

All I knew was that it hurt like hell and I couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. Then, I realized blood was gushing out of my nose. This guy broke my damn nose. My shirt was covered in blood, and I pinched it to try and stop the blood flow.

Some guys who were with me helped me back to the Pi Kappa Alpha house. It was just around the corner, but my painful face made it hard to navigate. As we walked through the front door, my brother, Mike, and a couple of other guys were there, and he asked what had happened.

I told Mike how a bunch of us were just drinking and dancing at the Cellar, and a random guy threw a sucker punch at me. He told me to go up, change out of my bloody shirt, and come back down.

When I returned to the front door, Mike and Rob, a fraternity brother who played on the University of Maryland hockey team, told me to go with them back to the Cellar. When we got back inside, they asked me to point out who punched me. He was outside the bathrooms with three or four of his brothers, and I let Mike and Rob know.

The next thing I knew, Mike and Rob were throwing hands at all of those guys, and within like 30 seconds, they’d dropped each and every one. I felt better, but still wanted to go back to my room and chill.

Before I could do that, one of the guys in our house said I should go to the hospital and get it looked at. I hopped in his car, and we were off to the emergency room, where we spent the next many hours waiting to be seen.

When I finally got to go back and have a doctor look at me, they spent just a few minutes cleaning me up, putting tape across my face, and said I should ice it often and sleep with my head elevated.

When I got back to my room, I crashed hard until lunchtime. My face looked rough in the mirror. This white piece of tape was holding my nose in place, and everything around it was red, except for under my eyes, both of which were on the way to being black eyes.

We had a Halloween party scheduled that night, and one good thing to come out of all of this was that I figured out my costume… a prizefighter. All I needed was a robe, so that was cool.

That Saturday also happened to be the day I was going to meet my girlfriend’s father for the first time. We made plans for lunch, and I hadn’t mentioned anything to her before meeting up, so she was surprised and concerned when I rolled up with a bashed-in nose.

I was worried her dad would think I was some knucklehead who got into fights regularly, so I apologized when I met him and told him the story. He just laughed and said he was in the Air Force and saw many broken noses from nights at the bar.

The next couple of weeks were very uncomfortable. I couldn’t blow my nose, and when I slept, if my nose even brushed against my pillow, it would make my eyes water from the pain.

But I am a glass half full guy, and I did realize a benefit from this punk surprising me with his cowardly fist. Before the punch, my nose was slightly crooked. After I got punched and then healed, my nose was more or less straight. I’d gotten a free rhinoplasty, so there was a benefit at the end.

Thanks for having my back, Mike and Rob.

Originally published at https://shawncollins512.substack.com.

In 1992, Bill Clinton Got the White House—and I Got the Frat House

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One of the things that attracted me to Greek life was the opportunity to take on leadership roles. From the start, I was excited to be more than just a brother. I wanted to help, give back, build, learn, and support the brotherhood’s success.

While I was initiated in early 1989, my drive to be a leader in the house was delayed because I spent all of 1989 doing community service when I wasn’t working or studying.

Pi Kappa Alpha at University of Maryland 1993

Shawn Collins Pi Kappa Alpha President

My first roles were in spring 1990 as the public relations person for G.A.M.M.A. (Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol), corresponding secretary for Pi Kappa Alpha, the Greek Week booklet chairman, and as a copy editor and staff writer for the Greek Insider newspaper.

Each semester after that, I ran for various offices and served on committees to represent our chapter on campus and gain experience myself.

All of this led up to the spring of 1992, when I decided to run for President of the fraternity. I made some handouts to share with the brothers during the election that highlighted my experience and reasons I should be elected.

Why vote for Shawn Collins for SMC

Shawn Collins experience for SMC

As the election drew closer, I made one of the toughest decisions of my fledgling political career. I had scheduled a get-together for brothers and alumni to begin encouraging alumni to come around more and help the active brothers with the chapter.

But after I’d scheduled the event with our alumni, my girlfriend told me her spring formal was on the same night. I knew what I had to do. I told her I was going to the fraternity event and would have to miss the sorority formal. That didn’t go over well.

meeting with Delta Psi alumni

I thought it would be important to show my priorities to the brothers and alumni, and reinforce how serious I was about becoming President of the chapter. Did skipping the formal help me win the election? I have no idea, but it didn’t hurt.

Well, it hurt my relationship with my girlfriend, but that ended a year later, and I still have the composite from when I was President.

Plus, as President, I got the best room in the fraternity house, and no rent was charged to the President, which was a huge perk for me, as I paid my way through school.

That same spring, a Democratic primary debate was held at the University of Maryland on March 1, 1992. Jerry Brown, Bill Clinton, Tom Harkin, and Paul Tsongas participated in the debate, and afterward, Bill Clinton held a party at the Santa Fe Cafe, which was next to our fraternity house.

My term began at the start of the fall 1992 semester, shortly after Bill Clinton had secured his nomination at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

I went to a campus rally for Al Gore on September 18, 1992, and got to shake his hand as he passed through the crowd. That day, I got a Clinton/Gore sign and put it in my room window.

My one-semester term concluded shortly before President Clinton was sworn in on January 20, 1993. I accomplished the goals I’d set and was happy with how everything went while I was in office.

Originally published at https://shawncollins512.substack.com.

When Pi Kappa Alpha Ran ACAmania at the University of Maryland

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It was early 1989 when my PiKA brother, Rich Dickson, mentioned at one of our chapter meetings that the fraternity would be running a large-scale, multi-day sale of ACA JOE clothing to benefit Family Stress Services in Washington, D.C.

Pi Kappa Alpha brothers at the University of Maryland decked out in ACA JOE gear.

Dickson’s mother ran the retailer, ACA JOE, at the time, and Rich organized ACAmania with some other fraternity brothers. The event took place at Ritchie Coliseum on the University of Maryland campus.

The whole building was filled with tables with merchandise from ACA JOE, and all of us helped to put out clothes, ring up sales, etc. I guess we were selling all of their clearance items, since the prices were cheap, and tons of students came through and bought the gear.

I have no idea how well the final sales went, but $5,000 was donated to Family Stress Services, and the clothing we sold was all over campus for years after. I bought a bunch of stuff, including some rugby shirts with thin, colorful stripes and a blue jacket with shoulder pads (I regretted that one, but wore it for a while because I needed a jacket).

ACAmania at the University of Maryland

As we were promoting the event, a photographer came to the fraternity house to get a picture of us all wearing our ACA JOE t-shirts on the front porch.

They made posters from the picture, which were displayed at the ACA JOE stores, and I still have my copy. But those clothes are long gone.

In the December 1989 edition of Shield and Diamond (the magazine from the national headquarters of Pi Kappa Alpha), the recap of our chapter (Delta Psi) mentioned ACAmania…

Delta Psi chapter also presented an ACAMANIA weekend in April, a giant clothing sale which raised money for Family Stress Services in Washington, D.C., to help fight child abuse.

There was more coverage in the Shield & Diamond chapter notes in the March 1990 issue about the first ACAmania and the upcoming second event.

ACA-MANIA was a major effort put forth this year by the chapter. Pioneered by Rich Dickson, with a hard-working support staff including Andrew Auwerda, Rob Bruno, and Joe Millman, this venture has been widely successful. The chapter is now on the verge of the second annual ACA-MANIA at Maryland, and several similar undertakings have been launched at Pike chapters around the country. The three-day public awareness and fundraising event is designed to bring attention to the problem of child abuse and is underwritten by ACA JOE, a leading men’s specialty retail chain.

Family Stress Services, the D.C. Chapter National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse, was the recipient of a $5,000 donation. Judy L. Rhodes, Executive Director of Family Stress Services, writes: “I have never been more impressed. The organizational and managerial skills that your fraternity displayed would give credit to some of the best public relations and fundraising firms on the East Coast.

You designed and orchestrated this project with obvious respect for professionalism. Everything from T-shirts and poster design to radio, television, and print media coverage was completed with an eye for detail and perfection. You were able to secure not just public service announcements, but in-depth interviews with noted personalities.

You managed to acquire, display, and sell (at +50% discount!) quality merchandise from ACA JOE, a very reputable clothier. You even managed to salvage the event from a major rainstorm. The other support activities – soft drink and food sales, lotteries, and a disk jockey-topped an already impressive function.” Congratulations to Delta Psi on a job well done.

And after all of these years, what’s Brother Dickson up to? He’s been the CEO of Gap, Inc. since the summer of 2023, after working as President of Mattel, where he made Barbie relevant again.

Originally published at https://shawncollins512.substack.com.