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Paragon August 2024 |
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RSVP Now for Fall Alumni Sponsored Rush |
Upcoming Events September November July 2025 |
| A Message from the Secretary |
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Brothers, Since the start of 2024 we have been working hard to update our member database. This issue of the Paragon is reaching 33 brothers for the very first time! If you’re one of those 33 brothers, welcome! We’re glad to have you here with us. Please check out www.ohioalphabeta.org to see an archive of our past Paragons to learn more about what we’ve been up to since this iteration of the Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association launched in April 2022. We now have an email address for 647 of the 1040 brothers in our database. This is in large part due to the efforts of Robert Fedor, Gavin Brown, Ross Hackel, Thomas Dunn, James Miller, Rich Jerdonek, Michael Mele, Tim Kill, Robert Sepsi, Bruce Tomcik and Robert Stalder, who each spent some time in 2024 to go through their list of contacts and update emails, phone numbers and other information. Thank you brothers! If you have an email address or other contact info for those remaining 393 brothers, please send it to secretary@ohioalphabeta.org, or even better, forward this email to them! We have a busy fall semester planned. We will once again be hosting our alumni sponsored rush event at Quaker Steak on Friday, September 13; read on for more details. Mark your calendars now for Initiation on Friday, November 15 and Homecoming on Saturday, November 16; details will follow in a future Paragon. And for those whose lives are a little busy and need plenty of advance notice, we have scheduled our 2025 July Work Weekend for Saturday, July 19 and Sunday, July 20, 2025. Your donations support our efforts. Since our last Paragon, we have received new donations from Joseph Banks, Thomas Andersen and Michael Calabrese. Brothers, we appreciate your support! We also thank all the members of the Ernie Schmidt Club, who have committed to a recurring monthly donation. That regular support makes it much easier for us to plan our activities. Thank you! Yours in the Bonds, Nathan Kossover |
| RSVP Now for Fall Alumni Sponsored Rush |
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For Fall Rush 2024, the Alumni Board is sponsoring a dinner at Quaker Steak and Lube in Valley View, OH, for the Actives and specially invited Potential New Members (PNMs). Please join the Ohio Alpha Beta chapter in this important recruitment event on Friday, January 26, and help demonstrate that brotherhood is for life. Place: Quaker Steak & Lube, Valley View (5935 Canal Rd, Valley View, OH) |
| July Work Weekend Is a Huge Success! |
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We held our summer work weekend on July 13 and 14. Alumni came in from ten different states to improve the safety, utility and aesthetics of our house while having a lot of fun together. The fun started on Friday night with a gathering at Voodoo Brewing in Cleveland Heights. Thomas Andersen, Davey Rowan, Joseph Reed, David Jaklitsch, John Dutton, Tony Rossi, Matthew Dellibovi, Eric Pinzur, Patrick Glynn and Neal Pence enjoyed some food and drink while catching up with each other. Our hard working Housing Committee had done a lot of advance prep work so our alumni volunteers were able to hit the ground running on Saturday morning. Here is just a partial list of the projects which were completed that weekend. - The surface of the stairs from the bar area to the first floor were replaced with commercial-grade rubber treads. The risers on this staircase were painted. |
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If the new rubber treads hold up, we’ll consider doing this for the back staircase as well. - The north wall in the basement party room was stripped down to the brick. Old knob and tube wiring was disconnected on this wall and replaced with updated electrical.
Down comes the old paneling.
Found on the back of the old paneling was this note. Con Deletis and Frank Ilcin were undergradutes in the late 1950s. Let’s all hope the work done at this work weekend also lasts 65+ years.
Bare brick and new electrical. - The third floor hallway was painted and two light fixtures were replaced. - On the front porch, replacement bases were installed for the two porch columns. A new 11016 house number was hung on the front porch.
The old number on the chain, and the new number beneath it. Not that any of us are going to forget that number! - Plumbing repairs were made to the handwash sink in the kitchen and to the water fountain. - The gutters were cleaned and in a few cases repaired.
It might have been a while since we cleaned the gutters. - A lot of landscaping was done, including mowing, weed whacking, trimming, pulling down vines and laying mulch.
Looking pretty sharp! - An issue with the fire alarm system was corrected. The alarm now correctly dials out to the fire department when triggered. - Assorted trash and debris was cleared out of the house and garage. This, combined with our yard waste and construction dust, filled a dumper with a capacity of 30 cubic yards. - A rusted cast iron stack running from the second floor to the basement was replaced with PVC. An additional piece of cast iron vent stack in the attic was replaced. - A deep cleaning of the kitchen was performed by the undergraduate brothers during the Sunday session. - The emergency lights in the laundry room were replaced. - Earlier this year professional exterminators removed a raccoon from the attic and patched its entry point. During work weekend, other raccoon ‘traces’ were removed. - Where needed, new caulk was laid on sinks, showers, tubs, doors and windows. - The dryer vents were cleaned out. - A hole in the roof of the Greenhouse bedroom was patched. Alumni brothers who participated on either Saturday or Sunday included: Robert Sepsi, Nathan Kossover, Jason Dolan, Ken Nagano, Eric Pinzur, Matthew Dellibovi, John Dutton, Joseph Reed, Wayne Miller, Thomas Andersen, Joshua Ghiloni, Steve DeBrosse, David Jaklitsch, Joseph Gall, Eugene Choi, Tim Kill, Tony Rossi, Patrick Glynn, Davey Rowan and Neal Pence.
As the most senior brother present, Bob Sepsi ran the tool crib on Saturday. Undergraduate brothers in attendance included Arnav Reddy, Jack Joseph, Anders White, Ryan Thompson, Abhinav Kalhan, Samuel Qin, Nicholas Ojeda, Andrew Ziets, Hayden Caldwell, Danil Mosley, Curtis Callum. We apologize to any attendees we missed. Next time, sign the check-in sheet! The National Office also got into the act. Director of Fraternal Operations Stephan Oeschle (Ohio University ‘06) came up on Sunday from his home near Toledo and used his wood lathe to turn and replace several of the balustres from our staircase railings on the first and second floor. Thank you Stephan!
Stephan Oeschle from the National Office turning new balustres in the backyard. How do we follow such a successful work weekend? We plan to do it again next year. Mark your calendar today! The Summer 2025 Work Weekend will be on Saturday, July 19 and Sunday, July 20. We hope to see you there!
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| Composite Repairs Completed |
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Our 1965 and 1969 composites have been repaired and returned to the walls of 11016 Magnolia. As previously noted, David Cesaratto ‘68 provided his personal copy of the 1965 composite, and Michael Urbancic ‘70 provided his personal copy of the 1969 composite. Our vendor was able to scan these composites and print a high quality copy that could be framed and hung in the Red Room.
These repairs could not have been completed without the financial support of our membership. In particular, we want to thank Ron Krahe ‘69, James Miller ‘71, Bill Rolfes ‘69 and Gregory Koesel ‘70 for their donations to this project. We’d also like to thank Bruce Tomcik ‘65 for helping correct some labeling errors of long-standing on the 1965 composite. Over the last twelve months we have now professionally repaired or replaced 15 of our composites. They look great, and we urge you to drop by the house some time to check them out. We have reached the end of this project unless one of you has a copy of the any of the following composites:
If you have a composite for any of those years, please reach out to Nathan Kossover at secretary@ohioalphabeta.org and we’ll see what we can do to get them back on the wall. |
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The Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association exists to connect the over 1000 alumni of the Phi Kappa Theta Ohio Alpha Beta chapter at Case Western Reserve University through events, newsletters, and other gatherings. Our subsidiary organization, the Ohio Alpha Beta Housing Corporation, exists to own, maintain, and improve the Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter House located at 11016 Magnolia Drive, Cleveland, OH, 44106. Please add @ohioalphabeta.org to your contact list to ensure delivery of the Paragon. 11016 Magnolia Dr
Cleveland, OH 44106 United States |
