As we speak (OK, as I write), my friend Shylo is getting hitched in Chicago in what is probably the coolest wedding ever.
Why is it the coolest wedding ever? Two words: Prom theme.
I can’t be there, unfortunately, but I’m all over the shiny disco ball and the parish hall gymnasium in spirit.
After 85 days in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller is free. She testified in front of a grand jury after receiving permission from her source, possibly for the second time, to disclose her name.
She had gotten the information about CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity from Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby. Her refusal to tell a grand jury Libby’s identity had led to her jailing for contempt of court on July 6.
Miller’s testimony has been described as one of the last objectives in the investigation of federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. It is unknown whether Fitzgerald will end up charging anyone with a crime as a result of the investigation.
So, I come home from the paper to find the new copy of Shield & Diamond, the Pi Kappa Alpha magazine, waiting for me.
My chapter at Virginia Tech has won the fraternity’s highest honor, the Smythe Award. We’ve won this a bunch of times, but this is the first time, I think, that the reconstituted fraternity has won it. (That’s a story for another time.) So great news for Epsilon Chapter. We also received the 100 Man Award, which I suspect means exactly what it says on the label. When I was in school, we had about 120 brothers (helped along by guys on their sixth, seventh and in one case, eighth years in school). So it looks like the chapter’s back on track in a variety of ways.
Then there’s page after page of financial reports, which boil down to “why aren’t you giving money, Yarbrough, directly to your chapter if nothing else?”
That’s followed by the Alumni Notes, where I see my pledge brother Stan “Gyro” Maoury is now the associate director for the federal consulting division of Gartner, Inc. and lives in Ashburn, VA with his wife, Julie, and their children, Stan III and Lauren. My entry, discussing where I work and my three 2004 SPJ awards has a typo in my e-mail address: It’s actually LBY3@Hotmail.com.
And finally, they’re pushing the 2006 Alumni Directory on the back, which is a collected database of where everyone is and how to reach them. The hardbound version is a little pricy at $69.95, so let’s look at the softcover … $66.95. Pass. I often think that some of the folks working at the national office are out of touch with post-collegiate realities. This just confirms it.
