“The guys ahead of us acted as role models for how to behave, have a good time, and how to serve the fraternity,” says True Morse, a 1979 alum of Phi Delta Theta at Purdue University.
The fraternity was known for its “prominent visibility,” says True. “We were known for the Little Sister’s signup during the freshmen welcoming event happening around the Student Union. We did not have little sisters. Another thing we were known for was the water slide we constructed each spring on the front lawn using scaffolding since we did not have a hill to put it on.”
Many memories stick with True from his time at the fraternity, but two stand out to him. “The funniest ones can’t be published. But the two funniest ones that can be published are when Kal Knable ’77 and Ken Correll ’77 climbed the crane being used to build the parking deck behind the house and the police came. Whoever was on the crane was so high up that the police could not angle their spotlights high enough to see them. Whoever was on the ground yelled up, ‘the police are coming, hide!’ The other was during the massive blizzard of 1978 when the school shut down. The drifts were so big we were running the length of the living room and diving out the windows into the drifts.”
Phi Delta Theta used to play tackle football for a keg of beer against the brothers of Kappa Sigma, according to True. “One year we had some pretty severe injuries to our chapter advisor and someone else – broken bones. I think we stopped after that.”
True also recalls going on road trips with his brothers and remembers one instance when a pickup line didn’t exactly pan out in the way he had hoped. “Some older guys let John Clark ‘79 and I ride out to Denver, Colorado on spring break with them to stay with Ken Correll and go skiing at Vail. On the way out, I had a tooth that kept getting worse. I ended up having an emergency root canal on a Sunday in Denver. My face swelled up really badly. The Golden Gloves boxing competition was in Denver while we were there, so we told the girls we met that I was a competitor. It didn’t work well as a pickup line.”
Front row left to right: True Morse, Tom Tremain, Tom Martino, Ron Hawthorne
True made many close friends at the fraternity who remain close friends years later. When True was diagnosed with stage 3 malignant melanoma in 2018, True’s good friends Ralph Green ‘79, Tom Martino ‘79, John Clark ‘79, Bob Bouggy ‘79, Fritz Schumann ‘79, Tom Tremain ’79, and Lee Bryan ‘80 were all there for True and his wife every step of the way. “I think their prayers and emotional support made a big difference. The immunotherapy was successful, and I have been cancer free ever since.”
In 2022 when True had open-heart surgery for a valve repair and a bypass, the group remained in constant support. “This same group was cheering me on. Lee Bryan ‘80 was my coach. He had gone through a similar surgery in November 2021, and he spent a lot of his time preparing me for what to expect,” True says.
“Our ongoing relationship is supportive, humble, and just like it was when we were at Purdue. No one gets any respect (in the most good-natured manner),” True says.
True continues to credit Phi Delta Theta for the valuable lessons it taught him while living with his brothers in the house, including learning how to get along with others with different opinions and beliefs. “Like it or not, with 80 or so guys in the house, there were going to be those you didn’t like or look up to. But that in itself is one of the most valuable lessons from the Phi lodge. It prepared us for what we would experience for the rest of our lives, having to still accomplish things with some people that we did not necessarily like or agree with. The challenge of self-governing 80 guys in their early 20s is staggering in retrospect.”
Outside of Phi Delta Theta, True was also a cheerleader. At the 40th reunion in 2019, True and his partner, Kathy Davis Jordan, were able to cheer on the Ross-Ade football field.
“This picture is with one of the other cheerleaders on my shoulders along with their mannequin mascot, Hillary, that we would blanket toss for each point scored,” True says.
