Paragon
December 2024
Welcome Newly Initiated Brothers!
Upcoming Events
July 2025
Saturday, July 19, 2025 – Summer 2025 Work Weekend
Sunday, July 20, 2025 – Summer 2025 Work Weekend
|
Paragon December 2024 |
|
|
Welcome Newly Initiated Brothers! |
Upcoming Events July 2025 |
| Welcome Newly Initiated Brothers! |
|
|
Brothers, On November 15, five new brothers were initiated into the Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta. Ronald Du is a member of the class of 2027. Antonio Maia, Edmond Hsu, Niteesh Ganesan and Casper Artman are in the class of 2028. Welcome brothers! |
|
|
L-R: Antonio Maia, Edmond Hsu, Ronald Du, Casper Artman, Niteesh Ganesan |
|
| Thank You For Your Support |
|
|
Many thanks are due to Nicholas DeCenzo ‘00 and Eric Pinzur ‘01, who both joined the Ernie Schmidt Club in November. We also wish to thank Christopher Frate ‘84, who made a one-time donation last month. The Ernie Schmidt Club now has 10 brothers who have collectively committed to donate more than $7000 to the Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association every twelve months. Their ongoing support makes it much easier for us to plan our future activities. We hope you choose to join their ranks via our website. |
|
 |
|
|
We would also like to thank the 40+ brothers who responded to the November Big Brother email, as they helped us identify another 50 Big Brother / Little Brother emails. Read on for more details and to learn who the new “Biggest Brother” of every current undergraduate brother is. Thanks are also due to those of you who responded to the “glue guy” email on December 6. We could really use the help from some “glue guys”, so we’d appreciate you taking a look and telling us your answer. Thanks in advance! Emails and donations are much appreciated, but we really love seeing you at events. For those who want to participate in person in 2025, we have some known opportunities coming up:
|
|
| Homecoming 2024 |
|
|
On Saturday, November 15, 18 brothers and guests gathered at Sasa in Shaker Square for Homecoming 2024. After a delicious dinner, attendees gathered outside the restaurant for the obligatory group photo. |
|
|
Back row L-R: Danita Grigsby, John Dutton, Carter Adams, Jordan Clark, Isaiah Taylor, Matthew Alexy, Curtis Callum, Timothy Kill, Robert Stalder, Nathan Kossover, Mandy Mehlman, Mark Francioli, Ken Nagano |
|
|
Following our impromptu photo session, attendees gathered at 11016 Magnolia for the “Phi Kap Night Cap” and enjoyed drinks and dessert while touring the house, telling stories about back in the day and catching up on recent events. A good time was had by all. Unfortunately, everybody was having such a good time that nobody took any photos at the house. We’ll work on that for next year! At the conclusion of the evening, the winner of our 50/50 raffle was drawn. The winning ticket was purchased by Davey Rowan ‘01, who donated his winnings back to the Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association. Thank you to Brother Rowan and to everybody who purchased a ticket. Thank you to the follow brothers and guests who attended Homecoming 2024.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association extends its sincere thanks to Ken Nagano ‘01 for coordinating Homecoming 2024. We look forward to seeing you at CWRU Homecoming 2025, which will be October 9-12. Please mark you calendar now. |
|
| Big Brother Research Continues |
|
|
Since September, we have been working hard to document as many of our Big Brother / Little Brother pairings as we can. As of our October Paragon, we had identified 378 Big Brother / Little Brother pairings, with 123 of them confirmed by the Little Brother in question. We are pleased to report that both of those numbers have grown substantially over the last month. As of December 7, we now have 431 Big Brother / Little Brother pairings in our database, 169 of which have been confirmed by the Little Brother. Thank you so much for your assistance in remembering this important part of our fraternity history. If you haven’t had a chance to reply to our initial BB email in September, or to the follow up in November (which only went to those who hadn’t responded to the first one), please hit reply right now and tell us who your Big Brother and Little Brother(s) are. As you may remember from October, every current undergraduate brother in the chapter is at the bottom of the same family tree. That tree in October was topped by Ted Purcell ‘80, aka “the Biggest Brother”. |
|
|
Ted Purcell '80 |
|
|
Both James Horejs ‘80 (Ted’s roommate for two years) and John Petkovsek ‘80 (Ted’s Little Brother) responded to the October Paragon to report that Ted’s BB was David Revay ‘78. |
|
|
David Revay ‘78 |
|
|
David’s reign as the newly identified “Biggest Brother” lasted less than a month before we learned via Mark Francioli ‘76 that David’s Big Brother is Richard Parsons ‘76. |
|
|
Richard Parsons ‘76. shown here on the 1974 composite. |
|
|
That makes Richard Parson the “Biggest Brother” for now. Depending on the exact twists and turns of the tree, it takes between 29 and 37 generations to connect Richard Parsons from his initiation in January 1973 to the current undergraduates in 2024. We do not have any contact info for Richard Parsons in our database, so there it stands unless one of you reading this knows who his Big Brother is. Maybe one of you IS his Big Brother. Respond and let us know! We’d love to connect the tree all the way back to 1959, or even earlier! We’d also like to thank James Horejs for identifying 15 Big Brother / Little Brother pairs. James pulled out his old Black Book from his pledge semester and sent us a bunch of information. As he noted “There's a lot of rambling, incoherent information in my book since that information was collected at drunken parties, so this may or may not be totally accurate” but much of it matched information we’d already received from other brothers, so we’re rolling with the new information he provided. Inspired by Brother Horejs’ example, do you still have your Black Book? If so, this is a great excuse to pull it out and tell us what family tree information you recorded back during your pledge semester, regardless of your sobriety level at the time. We still have 600+ brothers in our database without any Big Brother at all listed, and your information can help fill in those blanks. |
|
| 80's Brothers Mini Reunion |
|
|
On October 16, several Phi Kaps from the late 1980s and early 1990s gathered together for a meal at Mama Santa’s in Little Italy. The excuse to get together was provided by Russ Reynolds ‘88, who was visiting Cleveland from out of town |
|
|
From L-R: Eric Malkin ‘89, Russ Reynolds’ 88, Danny (not a Phi Kap), Joe Banks ‘88, Joe Jirgal ‘88, Don Currey ‘90 |
|
| Chapter Eternal - Thomas Lisy, Ralph Vollbrecht and Robert Setele |
|
|
The Fall issue of Case Alumnus Magazine reported the passing of two members of our chapter. Thomas Lisy ‘49 and Ralph Vollbrecht ‘56. Brother Lisy passed away in April; his obituary can be found here. We do not have further details for Brother Vollbrecht. Robert Setele ‘71 passed away in October. Bob’s brothers Mark Setele (‘78) and Michael Setele (‘76) are also members of the Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Chapter, as is his brother-in-law James Miller ‘71. Mark reported Bob’s death. Bob is survived by his wife, two daughters and two sons. The Ohio Alpha Beta Alumni Association extends its condolences to the family, friends and fraternity brothers of Brothers Lisy, Vollbrecht and Setele. May their memories be a blessing, and may they know peace. |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
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. https://www.ohioalphabeta.org/civicrm/mailing/optout/?reset=1&jid=&qid=&h=fakehash https://www.ohioalphabeta.org/civicrm/mailing/unsubscribe/?reset=1&jid=&qid=&h=fakehash 11016 Magnolia Dr
Cleveland, OH 44106 United States |
