Oswego State Phi Tau's (BCC)
Copy: Phi Kappa Tau National staff, Oswego Alumni Association
**Rob Cerame – please forward to all Undergraduate Brothers (not sure if my list is 100% accurate)
Welcome to the January 2006 PKT-EH report and our 6th consecutive year of sending monthly news to our brothers.
In this month's report:
1) Graduate Council President Retrospective
2) News for alumni and news from alumni brothers (11 entries)
3) News from the Undergraduate Chapter/Oswego State
4) News from Phi Kappa Tau HQ
5) January birthdays
6) January anniversaries (none)
7) www.pkteh.com – back up and running
*************************************************************************
1) Retrospective – Stephen Rupprecht ’91 – Graduate Council President
Brothers,
As I am finishing my 13th year as the Graduate Council President for EH and as we prepare for our 100th birthday as a national fraternity, I find myself looking at our beloved Oswego Phi Tau chapter as it relates to “the numbers”:
*When I started this job we kept our records in a MS Word table and we had just over 100 men on record. We now have 254 entries in our database.
*Of the 254 entries, 192 are PKT brothers in good standing AND alumni of Oswego State University. The remaining men: 21 undergraduates, 14 failed out, 9 left school, 7 disaffiliated, 5 unknown, and 2 expelled from Oswego and PKT.
*Of the 192 alumni, 109 of them receive the monthly newsletter. That’s only 56%. We need to find addresses for the rest. (Our website will hopefully be back up soon). **If you want to help – just say so.
*When I started back in ’93, Dan Farrell may have been the only married brother and I think he even had his first child by then. Now, at least 66 brothers are married, and 47 or more of them have kids. We even have triplets in our family (Pat Eivers 3 girls) and twins in our family (Bobby Kelly’s 2 boys = Phi Tau legacies)
*We’ve created 9 Team Captains to better outreach to our brothers.
*I wanted to provide the balance to you of our Chapter Education Grant (CEG) in trust at the Phi Kappa Tau Foundation, but the offices are closed for the holidays. What I can tell you is that when I took this job, that CEG did not exist. We had NO funding from alumni except for cash and some checks each November at alumni weekend. I’m 90% confident that CEG is (a) over 10 years old now; (b) has a decent 4-figure balance and (c) has distributed well over $1000 in support for undergraduate chapter members over the years. Thank you to all the men who have contributed to this over the years, most especially to Dave Monk and Russ Byer who contribute monthly, and to our brother Jeff Lawton (RIP) who made significant donations to this account before his death in 2001. Here’s some trivia: Who made the very first donation to the EH CEG account? (HINT: It was not me – nor the men listed above. He’s a teacher. He joined prior to 1992. And...he once tore a tree from the ground in his upstate hometown).
*We have 215 nicknames on record, alphabetically from 00Club Foot and Animal (first 2) to Worms and Zippy (last 2). Our nicknames start with every letter of the alphabet except Q, X, and Y. 5 nicknames have 2 owners, those being Bates, Bear, Monk, Stork, and Vegas. We have The Dom and The Don. We have DP, DT, IB, ICU, P.I.T.A, and TC. We have Bub and Bubba, and we also have Scoop and Snoop. (We also have 38 men with no nickname on record).
*Finally, we’ve had 24 men serve our chapter as President since day #1 with Founder Jyme Johnson being our first President.
In the spirit of our creed – I shall be loyal to my college and my chapter, and shall keep strong my ties to them that I may ever retain the spirit of youth - let’s all make a strong effort to keep our ties strong, to stay in touch, to watch sporting events together, to attend events together, to send in news to be shared, to send in photos of our kids and of our accomplishments, and to find some way to spend a day together in March 2006 to celebrate our 100th birthday.
Proud to be..
Stephen Rupprecht ‘91
Scoop
2) News for alumni and from alumni brothers
a) News for alumni
Oswego State Phi Tau Alumni in the NY Metro area should hold Friday, March 17 for a 100th Birthday/Founder's Day celebration to be held in NYC/LI to recognize our Founding Date: March 17, 1906. Location with be at a private establishment in mid-town Manhattan. Details to follow.
(Original “hold date” was Saturday the 18th – so delete this – and hold Friday the 17th)
b) Andy Mataraso (Beta – Spring ’89 – amataraso@hotmail.com) wrote:
We have a new addition. A baby girl named Zoe. Michelle finally gave birth
on 12/20. She was 6lbs, 6.5oz., 18.5". I included a picture of the 3 of
us.
Hope all is well with you. It was great to see you at Paul's wedding. I'll do my best to make the Yankee game, but I can't really commit at this time.
Talk to you soon! Happy New Year!!!
All the best,
Andy
c) Dave Gordon (Beta – Spring ’89 - v865mustang@hotmail.com ) and his wife Staci are proud parents of a baby girl – Brianna – born December 10, 2005.
Dave and Staci also hosted Pat Eivers (Founder - eivers3@optonline.net ), Mike Rosengarten (Alpha – mikerosengarten@yahoo.com ), and Stephen Rupprecht (Zeta – scoop@alumni.oswego.edu ) for Monday Night Football on Monday, December 26, 2005.
d) Tim LaLone (Zeta-Spring ’91 – TSLSAK@yahoo.com ) wrote: “Thanks for always keeping me in the loop.
I have a website I keep updated for family and friends where anyone can visit and catch up. Please feel free to share it.
In fact, anyone can sign up for free and keep their own site. Check it out:
Take care,
Vin-E
e) Bobby Kelly (Eta-Fall ’91 – KellyR@harborfieldscsd.org ) is an Assistant Principal at Harborfields High School.
f) Dave D’Agostino (Epsilon-Fall ’90) has a new e-mail: ddagostino@nycap.rr.com
g) Eric Schultz (Gamma-Fall ’89- SammyPKT@aol.com) and his wife Penni have a 4.5 month old baby boy Jared.
h) Joe Dottolo (Omega-Spring ’00 – jdottolo4@yahoo.com) wrote to say he’s been in touch with fellow Phi Taus and Floridians Evan Sonne, Jaime Steele, Anthony Ciaccio, and Bob Buccanan. He’s looking to get all of these guys back up to Oswego for the Spring Alumni Weekend (*last weekend in April) and wrote: “The flight itself would be fun. I would like to include any other florida or Southern Bro's. We were thinking of taking a long weekend. Let me know if there is anything I can do!”
Joe Dottolo
Brasco
i) Ciro “Jerry” (aka Dorito eating Silo Head) Vitiello (Zeta-Spring ’91 - jerry@cjsmtnparadise.com) wrote:
I want to say hello to my former house mates
Kid, Burger, Russ, Jon
Peace Love and Happiness
Zero
j) Anthony Trapani (Rho – Fall ’96 - phrenocon@aol.com) wrote:
What's up Scoop? I've been selling real estate on the island as an agent, and investing in property in Florida. I'll have my Florida broker's license soon, and that will open many more opportunities. Looking forward to hear what everyone is up to. A great new year to everybody.
k) Jim Ives (Theta – Spring ’92 – jcives@cox.net) wrote:
Here is a quick update from Macon, GA:
Work: Even though I moved back from Zurich, Switzerland in October ’03 I am continuing to work as an independent contract with Winterthur Insurance Company of Switzerland on a full-time time basis and I have just signed a 2 yr extension which should take me through 2006. In a nutshell, I work about 95% of the time out of my basement with their worldwide sites with a little travel interspersed. I plan on being in the Time Square area during the first or second week of February and it would be great to meet up with some brothers for dinner / drinks.
Family: All is well on the home front. My wife, Angela and I will celebrate our 7th anniversary in March and our children (James (3 yrs), Sophia (7 months)) are both doing great.
Fraternity: Macon is a far way from Oswego, but I still enjoy reading your monthly updates; thanks for sending these out. The only brother that I have spoken with lately is BBD (Bad Brad Dempsey). We would like to organize a foursome (golf that is) for a long weekend playing the Robert Trent Jones Golf trail in Alabama sometime in the late Spring / early Summer. Anyone interested should send either Brad or me an email.
Well that is about all for now. Thanks again,
Jim
Smooch Sp’92
l) Brian Van Zandt (Eta – Fall ’91 – brian_vt@hotmail.com) wrote:
Happy New Year to all. Things are going well for me and my wife. Had a
great New Years Eve. Spent it at an awesome house party in West Islip with
Dave Gutman and about 50 other friends. I still keep in touch with the
Gutmans, Mondo, Mayette, Demian and recently hung out with Vegas a few
times.
I'm still working as a sales rep for a Full Service Computer Company. We
work with small to medium size businesses in the tri state area - helping
them with their Network and computer issues, supplying them with computer
hardware, designing websites, custom database work and VoIP phone systems.
It's going well, but could always use more leads if anyone is interested in
talking more about the services we provide feel free to contact me.
Brian Mayette just had a baby boy and is now planning his bachelor party to
Jamaica in March - so I am psyched for that trip. I'm also headed out to
Tahoe at the end of the month for a week with a bunch of friends. Hoping
for some serious fresh powder runs. Other than that not much else going on.
Just wanted to say hi to everyone.
Brian Van Zandt
516 449-7546
**Great sharing this month – lots of news from the boys. If you didn’t see your name – let’s hear from you for February.
3) News from the Undergraduate Chapter – from VPAR Rob Cerame (cerame@oswego.edu)
Undergrads are on break until late January.
4) News from Phi Kappa Tau HQ
Put yourself in Phi Kappa Tau's history - literally! The Fraternity is celebrating its first great century by building a garden for all members and friends to enjoy. The garden will be adjacent to the Executive Offices in Oxford, Ohio. You can buy a brick to be placed in the garden inscribed with:
*Your Name/Nickname, info
*Your pledge class (and chapter of course)
*We can purchase one as a chapter
*other ideas???
Check out: http://www.phikappatau.org/centennial/brick.order.asp
5) Please get in touch with the following Brothers celebrating birthdays in January:
|
Status2 |
First |
Last |
Class |
Birthday |
|
|
Alumni |
Mark |
Dillon |
08-Eta |
01/07/71 |
mark_dillon@ccpsnet.net |
|
Alumni |
John |
Wenzel |
02-Alpha |
01/10/69 |
jhwmosh@hotmail.com |
|
Alumni |
James |
Ives |
09-Theta |
01/11/72 |
jcives@cox.net |
|
Alumni |
Ron |
Volpone |
01-Founder |
01/12/68 |
RAVolp@comcast.net |
|
Alumni |
Greg |
Montague |
01-Founder |
01/17/68 |
MontagueG@aol.com |
|
Alumni |
Michael |
DeVagno |
10-Iota |
01/20/72 |
michael.devagno@verizon.net |
|
Alumni |
Joseph |
Chapman |
24-Psi |
01/25/79 |
|
|
Alumni |
William |
Bendall |
01-Founder |
01/28/69 |
billandmolly@nc.rr.com |
|
Alumni |
Justin |
Gutman |
16-Omicron |
01/31/77 |
jgutman22@yahoo.com |
**If your birthday is in January and you are not listed, it means I do not have up-to-date contact info for you. Please reply and share this with me.
**NOTE: We still have 93 men listed with no birthday on record. Look for a special e-mail coming soon attempting to fill in missing info.
6) Please get in touch with the following brothers celebrating anniversaries in January:
None
7) Our website is back up and running – www.pkteh.com
Guys – please take a chance today to visit the website and re-join “The Forum”. We had a lot of guys on the old forum – lightning struck – we lost everything – and luckily for us we have a dedicated alum like Jason Elwood (Mu-Spring ’94 - jelwood1@rochester.rr.com) who got things back up and running.
Again – you need to re-join The Forum – please do so today! A few news and announcements are already posted.
That's it for January. Next report is scheduled for February 2006!
Scoop
Stephen Rupprecht '91
Graduate Council President-EH