THE • PI • KAPPA • PHI • FRATERNITY
Omegalite OCTOBER 2010
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Alumni respond to higher calling Serving others is a calling each of us should have, but a call to doing so as clergy is much, much rarer. In fact, according to alumni records, there have been only three Omega alumni out of more than 1,600 who have responded to that calling. For 90-year-old Louis “Wendell” Adams (Omega 383), that calling was more of a push than anything else. While a teacher and administrator more than 50 years ago he took the pulpit almost on a dare from a friend at Linebarger Chapel near the small town of Montezuma, IN – some 15 miles from the Illinois state line. “I was asked to preach one Sunday by the district superintendent of the Methodist church in Terre Haute,” Adams said recently. “ He said, ‘we had no one to serve, would you take the pulpit this Sunday.’ ” It was the church he was married in some seven years before the friend’s prodding and eight years removed from a degree in animal sci-
Pastor Wendell Adams, and his wife, Madonna, are recognized at his last Sunday of preaching before retiring at Salem United Methodist Church.
ences from Purdue. He really wanted to be a farmer, a teacher or a school administrator. His path to the clergy, Purdue and Pi Kappa Phi was somewhat by happenstance. The day after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II, the Michigan native went to Detroit and enlisted in the Marines. He served in the South Pacific Theatre. Specifically, he was involved in securing the Samoan Islands. He was one of the many G.I.s who came to Purdue a bit older than the traditional student. Having been converted to Christianity at the age of 15, he sought to continue that tradition through the military and at Purdue. While being active with the Wesley Foundation on campus, he met a Pi Kapp who shared his zeal for faith. “I went to Pi Kappa Phi in 1944 after being asked by (the late) George Jordan (Omega 364),” Adams said. “He said, ‘we need you as a recruit at the fraternity.’ ” Because he was an older veteran, Adams was unsure of how it would work out. “I was pleasantly surprised by the faith life there,” he said. “I made such firm, endearing relationships with those guys. Most were A-1 guys. I had been to war and back, but they totally accepted me and I did likewise. “I felt at home with (the brothers). George and I became closer as Christian friends at Pi Kappa Phi.” Following graduation in 1947, Adams got a teaching job in western Indiana and started graduate school at Indiana State Teacher’s College – now Indiana State University – in school administration. “I really didn’t want the adminisContinued on Page 3
Ryan Nugent, Eric Allen, Ryan Kilboy and Dan Cronin accept the 2010 Kroeg Award during the Surpeme Banquet at Supreme Chapter in Orlando, FL.
Repeat Omega chapter wins Kroeg Award 2nd time in a row Omega was the most recognized of all student chapters nationwide at the 2010 Supreme Chapter meeting in Orlando. With more than 700 in attendance at the capstone event at the conference, Omega was named the Kroeg Award winner, signifying it as the top Pi Kapp chapter nationally in its class (chapters with 17 or more fraternities on their campus). It was the second consecutive such award for the Purdue delegation. The second Kroeg award comes on the heels of Omega being named the R.B. Stewart Award winner at Purdue in May. It was the third consecutive time the chapter has won the award – the first time ever any Purdue fraternity has won three in a row. “In more than 40 years of involvement in the local and national Pi Kappa Phi organizations, I have seen very few chapters – in any fraternity – achieve this high level of recogniContinued on Page 2