RENO, Nev. (AP) - It was 100 years ago this month that the first nationally affiliated fraternity appeared on the University of Nevada campus, and proud alumni of the Delta Xi Chapter of Sigma Nu will be making their way to Reno from around the country to commemorate the milestone.
As many as 400 alumni are expected to attend events that stretch from the campus quad to a centennial commemorative dinner and program at the Peppermill hotel-casino.
It’s a history worth celebrating, said Milt Sharp, a former Sigma Nu and student president at Nevada.
“As you mature and sort of appreciate the brotherhood that you’re involved in, then the history becomes more and more significant to you,” Sharp said. “It is an impressive history and something that is worthy being a part of.
In all, nearly 2,000 young men have been a part of the fraternity at Nevada over the past 100 years.
The beginnings of the Nevada chapter date back to 1911 when six young men formed the Nevada Club as a fraternal organization. By 1913, the club had expanded to 15 members and they rented a two-story residence on what is now Center Street, just outside the entrance to the university.
Almost from the formation, the Nevada Club had a mission to become affiliated with a national fraternity. Finally, they settled on Sigma Nu, a fraternity of about 80 chapters that had been founded in 1869 at Virginia Military Institute.
In April of 1914, the national organization approved the induction of The Nevada Club. Induction ceremonies were conducted several months later by members of the University of California and Stanford chapters at the Odd Fellows Lodge in Reno with a celebratory banquet following that evening at the Riverside Hotel.
As Nevada, the “Battle Born” state, celebrates its 150th birthday in 2014, the Sigma Nu chapter also carries the “Battle Born” designation. At the time of its charter, the first shots of World War I were being fired in Europe. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Nevadans responded and the Sigma Nus were part of it. In fact, only two fraternity members were on campus in 1918 and had to give up the lease on the fraternity house.
Ferney Snare, a Sigma Nu from Elko County, was a casualty of the war. He was the first, but not the last, fraternity brother to make the ultimate sacrifice in service to his country.
The first Sigma Nu from the Reno campus to become involved in what was to become World War II was Robert Hale Merriman, initiated into the fraternity in 1929.
He graduated from the University of Nevada and was teaching economics at the University of California when the Spanish Civil War began in 1936. He went to Spain and joined the Loyalist forces fighting the Fascists, leading the Abraham Lincoln brigade.
Merriman’s story was later documented by a fellow Sigma Nu alum, Warren Lerude, in the book, American Commander in Spain: Robert Hale Merriman and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.”
Many believe Merriman was the model for the main character in Ernest Hemingway’s book, “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
The list of distinguished alumni from the Delta Xi Chapter of Sigma Nu, is a virtual “Who’s Who” of leaders from all walks of life in Nevada, including:
- Jack Streeter, Nevada’s most decorated veteran of World War II.
- Sinclair Melner, a three-star general and former deputy chairman of the NATO Military Committee in Belgium.
- Olinto Barsanti, a Tonopah boy, whose military career stretched from World War II (where he was awarded 5 purple hearts) to Korea to Vietnam. Attaining the rank of major general, he commanded the famous 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam in 1968.
- Dr. James Herz commanded a field hospital in World War II and later founded the Reno Orthopedic Clinic, still the largest such clinic in Reno.
- Longtime Nevada coach and athletic director Jake Lawlor, the namesake of Lawlor Events Center, was a Sigma Nu.
- Local and national journalists including the late Ty Cobb, longtime sportswriter for Reno papers; Frank McCulloch, a Fernley boy who went on to the Los Angeles Times and Time Magazine; and Lerude, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977.
- Former Reno mayors Hugo Quilici and Sam Dibitonto are in the fraternity’s Legion of Honor.”
- Former Nevada governor and U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons was a Sigma Nu, and was current University Chancellor Dan Klaich.
One of the fraternity’s great traditions is the annual Crumley Dinner. Called simply “The Crumley” by fraternity members, the annual dinner is named for Newton Hunt Crumley, a 1932 graduate of the University of Nevada who went on to become one of the most prominent hotel operators in the state’s history.
It was Newt Crumley’s mother, Lee Hunt Crumley, who started The Crumley in 1928.
It was the depression era, and seeing that some of her son’s fraternity brothers could not afford bus or train are to travel home for the holidays, she conceived the idea of a special holiday dinner. She purchased turkeys with all the trimmings and enlisted the help of other Sigma Nu mothers to prepare and serve the dinner.
It’s part of a legacy of the university’s oldest fraternity and will be part of the remembrances as 100 years is celebrated this month.
___
Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, https://www.rgj.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.