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Alternate Pin Design
At the 1922 National Convention, a heated debate arose over the design of the pin. After numerous discussions, the delegates were still divided over whether to replace the traditional triangular design with a new, ten-pointed design.
Edward A. Geek, Beta (Combs College) ’15, was the originator of the design. Wanting to keep a piece of the old design in his new pin, Geek incorporated six garnets and twelve pearls with a scrolled “S” in the center. The main difference was in the theme of the design.
Historical documents show that he lobbied very hard for the “Geek pin” in the months before the convention. In fact, he even won over Supreme President, Chester R. Murray, Zeta (Missouri) ’09.
“This is the most relevant design I have seen,” said Murray. “Anything that has more points must have value.”
While the three points of the current design shows the actual Greek letters of the Fraternity, Geek felt that felt that spelling out the Fraternity’s name would make it more recognizable to those who were unable to read Greek. |
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“As American musicians, we should not only encourage our fellow musicians to be able to properly read music, but to properly read our name,” said Geek.
Otto Stahl, Epsilon (Michigan) ’15, supreme historian, was one of the major opponents of the Geek design.
“I say, this Geek-designed pin is most complicated. Any common person would have no idea on where to start reading the letters,” argued Stahl. “Most people would start reading from the top of the design. We would be known as ‘Ualph Aph Im.’ That’s just Greek gibberish.”
The argument made by Stahl was able to sway the delegation to reject the Geek pin design, relegating it to be buried away into the archives and eventually forgotten over the span of time.
For all concerned, this month’s Archives section celebrates April 1, commonly known as April Fool’s Day. All brothers mentioned are real. We didn't make them up. We hope you had a good laugh. Really....we hope you laughed. |
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