FROM THE PRESIDENT
B Y KE LLY MCGI N NI S B E C K, EK , N ATIO N A L PR E SID E N T
The Ritual of Alpha Sigma Alpha states: “The primary purpose of Alpha Sigma Alpha is to foster close friendships between members.” When I joined Alpha Sigma Alpha and thought about my sisters, I thought about those in my collegiate chapter. Sisters like Gretta Haag Young, Missy Paup Shipe, Melissa Laubach Underwood, Jessica Weinstein, Megan MacVaugh and Stacy Kroll Pappalardo, to name a few. I knew we were a national organization with chapters across the country, but I didn’t fully make the connection of how those relationships formed until I attended my first national convention in 1996 at the Saddlebrook Resort in Tampa, FL. That’s when I began to understand what lifelong membership in Alpha Sigma Alpha is really all about. The sisterhood on display resonated with me. Women from different age groups, different parts of the country, different chapters, different experiences, came together to celebrate our sisterhood and enjoy each other’s company. What a sorority woman looked like took on new meaning for me. At that convention, I watched my chapter advisor, Paula Foreman, ΡΡ, dress up in silly outfits with her closest sisters, Mary Ann Wenzel, GΗ, and Marlys Jarrett White, BB, and have fun at every event. It struck me that none of those women were from the same chapter. They became friends after they graduated college. The bonds of friendship that were on display were remarkable. When I look through the pictures from that convention, I’m amazed at the women who I had met but didn’t really know, and wouldn’t really know, until later. I had no idea that I would end up traveling as a leadership consultant with Jen Reisner Burkhardt, ΓΜ, or that I would become bingo buddies with Bonnie Payne Koenemann, ZZ and Betty Urban Wallick, ZZ, on the Centennial Cruise. I had no way of knowing that I, too, would find deep and meaningful friendships with Alpha Sigma Alphas from across the country. What I did know was that being a member of Alpha Sigma Alpha was so much more than I realized when I joined.
I have found in Alpha Sigma Alpha more happiness and joy than I could have ever imagined. Some of my closest friends are women who I have met over the years through volunteering, attending national events and local alumnae chapter events. These women have supported me through job changes, marriage, divorce, childbirth and so much more. Some I see often, others I might talk to every once in a while, and many I only see every two years at a national convention. Nonetheless, the ties that bind us together run deep and we pick up right where we left off, as if time has stood still. In the January 1, 1915 Phoenix, National President Ida Shaw Martin wrote, “A sorority’s strength is in its alumnae who carry the teachings of the sorority into the thick of life, making a test that will prove whether the ideals of the order are really well worthwhile. If a sorority can hold the interest of its alumnae, if it can devise ways and means of making sorority affiliation absolutely indispensable to the complete happiness of the girl who has left her school days far behind, it will have demonstrated its value far more than it ever can by merely adding more girls to the bottom of the list as fast as they retire at the top.” I hope, as you are reading this, you are thinking about those members who add joy and happiness to your life and that you seize opportunities to continue to build upon those relationships and form new ones. For it is the strength of our sisterhood that sustains us as individuals. In Alpha Sigma Alpha,
KELLY MCGINNIS BECK, EK NATIONAL PRESIDENT @ASAKELLYM
Phoenix of Alpha Sigma Alpha 3
