Something caught my eye at a recent Senate confirmation hearing. That's right, a Senate confirmation hearing. These are ordinarily one of Washington's mainstage nonevents.
This one was Dada theater, too, and I said "caught my eye," not "held my interest," but what it was -- several Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters turned out to support President Barack Obama's second nominee for attorney general, Loretta Lynch. Lynch isn't just a Delta. She's a founding member of the Harvard College chapter in 1980, and when she was announced at the White House, she stood beside the spouse of a fellow founding Harvard Delta sister, Sharon Malone.
That spouse? Attorney General Eric Holder.
Delta Sigma Theta is a sorority founded a little over a century ago at Howard University, a historically black university in Washington. Five years its senior, Alpha Kappa Alpha is another service sorority founded at Howard, and the local chapter -- Beta Pi Omega -- is celebrating a 20th anniversary at its Ivy Ball on Saturday at the Embassy Suites on Financial Centre Parkway. Its president, recently installed for a four-year term, is Melanie Hillard, a charter member of the Rhodes College chapter in Memphis.
I was not a Greek in college. If I were, my strongest connections to that membership today might be a couple of dozen additional Facebook friends and maybe the fading muscle memory of a secret handshake. (Did those really exist?)
"I would say [you] obviously don't understand," Hillard said, good-naturedly. "When we were initiated as members of AKA, it was a lifelong commitment. Recognizing needs in the community and implementing programs. Our organization, we have a wealth of knowledge, women who are trailblazers in their respective fields. Colette Honorable" -- the new Federal Energy Regulatory commissioner from Little Rock -- "she's a member of Beta Pi Omega chapter. You see the caliber of women we have in our organization."
"If people understood the commitment was not about playing and drinking and all that you do as an undergraduate. Our commitment is to our community and making our world better for the people who we love."
I thought Hillard would tell me that, at its height in the 1990s, membership was several hundred, but now Beta Pi Omega is holding fast to a few dozen women. Instead, she says membership is growing. Last year it was more than 200. (Today it has dropped to about 180.)
"And we're a diverse group. We have a member who will have been in the organization for 75 years this year."
Well, a diverse age group. The sexes and races of this group are not very diverse. No fraternity or sorority intends to be. The purpose of the Greek system isn't to celebrate heterogeneity. It's clannish, and it works for those initiates.
That's not just Greek. It's civic. From Masonic temples and Junior Leagues to kickball teams. This is particularly interesting to me as I walk my beat of fundraising events and galas.
But it's hard to find fault with a group that serves. Local service sorority programs include credit repair workshops and first-time mortgage help, literacy and mentoring programs for youth, employment aid. Then there's higher profile political advocacy -- AKA's scheduled Day at the Capitol on March 12, for instance -- that doubles as advantageous networking.
Here's the most interesting thing about these sororities. I assumed that, like most churches, anyone is welcome to "join." I thought service groups were more desperate for participants than participants were itching to get in. This may be true practically, but Hillard says that her sorority's newest members are invited. Undergraduates "rush," of course, but "at the graduate level we are currently looking for women who are college-trained, professional, with resources that will uplift the values of our organization."
"Uplift" is the word Lynch may have used after her confirmation hearing. The sorority's colors are crimson and cream, and the gallery was flush with crimson. The Christian Science Monitor reported afterward that Thelma Daley, a former national president, said, "We're going to flood the people in Congress and speak out in newspapers. We need to keep the pressure on," until the Senate confirms the nation's first black, female attorney general.
The commitment Lynch made 35 years ago is paying off.
Not least of all for the service sorority's profile.
ARKANSAS SISSY
At a fundraiser for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff's big new baseball complex, I ran into Sissy Jones, she of the memorable slogan "Life's too short for ordinary jewelry." I told her that I'd sat with her son Bill and his wife Sharri at the last Arkansan of the Year black-tie benefit for Easter Seals. Her smile sunk a bit at the reference.
Sissy, you see, is the next Arkansan of the Year.
So eminent, so august is the council of souls who've raised this mantle: truckin' couple Johnelle and J.B. Hunt, three former U.S. senators -- David Pryor, Dale Bumpers and Blanche Lincoln -- a J.J. (Jerry Jones) and a G.G. (George Gleason). Last year it was the downtown investor with the NASCAR name, Rush Harding. It goes back all the way to 1986, to Walter Smiley.
"Well, I sure hope he'll [son Bill] come to the next one," she said.
She'll be the toast of the ballroom, after all.
(That's May 1, Statehouse Convention Center; tickets are $250.)
Now, I asked Easter Seals, why Sissy? I said, please don't give me a stock answer like "Sissy has Arkansas in her heart."
Bless them, they didn't. Sissy Jones has "supported the event by giving beautiful jewelry pieces to the live auction for the last two years," says development director Mac Bell, and "it was two former honorees, George Gleason and Cindy Murphy, who asked her to be the 2015 honoree."
Sissy's Log Cabin jewelry is frequently up for auction at big events around town. Just anecdotally, observationally, I would say the retail outlets and Bill Jones are the most represented jewelry store/proprietor on the circuit. I've even heard that sign-off -- "Life's too short for ordinary jewelry" -- at events around town, by non-Joneses. Just kind of dropped lingua franca, like a Beatles refrain.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
High Profile on 02/15/2015