As we gear up for the second
convention season of my first term as the Counselor to the Tau Beta Sigma
Northeast District, I can tell you with confidence that serving in this role
has been one of the greatest honors a Sister can ask for. Every day I am
posed with great challenges both personally and professionally; the number of
hours a counselor spends on her tasks is simply countless. People
sometimes ask me how many emails I get a day or how many Facebook groups I am
in and I usually just laugh because there are too many to count – though I do
make it a priority to sift through everything on a daily basis and keep up with
all of your wonderful happenings. Serving as the counselor is a lot of
work…. like a lot a lot…. and wouldn’t be possible without the kind love and
support of everyone else on the team. As a counselor I work constantly
with the District Council, Chapter Councils, Sponsors and Directors of Bands,
other Counselors, Governors, National Council, and of course our wonderful
National Headquarters Staff. I get a lot of questions from students
asking me for an explanation of what exactly my job entails and I love the
reactions as students tell me their aspirations for how they might be able to
lead within Tau Beta Sigma. It absolutely warms my heart to hear students
tell me that they aspire to serve on the District Council or even to have my
job one day, and I love the stories students tell of how inspired they have
been by the really amazing student leaders who have come through our District
Council. Looking back, there are so many people to thank as our legacy
leaders- the ones who truly made an impact on our love for this Sisterhood and
have inspired us to become better Sisters and better leaders ourselves.
As we set some goals for our District
Council this year we placed a great focus on our District History.
I couldn't be happier to say that so much of the history of our
district can now be found under the History tab of our website, tbsned.org. Thank you to TBS
NED Alumni Secretary/Historian Billy Ray Poli and TBS NED Webmaster Nick
Valinski for accomplishing such a great task. Our physical history will
now be stored in the historical archives of one of our most historically driven
chapters – Beta Eta at the University of Maryland, in their infamous
Armory. Another aspect of our challenge of preserving and honoring our
history has been to do some research into our legacy leaders – those who have
been awarded Honorary Membership into our district, our list of past District
Officers, and our past District Counselors. Again, you can find the list
of past officers and counselors on our website. When looking at our list
of Honorary Members however we know that we still have a little more research
to do, but one thing surely caught my eye – the people who weren't on the list
but whom are probably presumed to be. I was dumbfounded to know that
I was only the second Counselor in TBS NED history to be inducted as an
Honorary Member of our district, and I feel almost guilty knowing how many deserving
people should share the same honor. In my digging, I found that the
wonderful Mrs. Cathy Miles was the only Counselor before me to share the same
honor (I learned that she was inducted along with Lt. Col. Alan Bonner by
then-NED President/now-Trustee of the Board Mrs. Melanie LeBlanc Meehan).
So, in thanks, let’s take just a second and review who these people who have
served us for countless hours have been:
Ester Shannon,
1949-1952; Henry Romersa, 1962; Ann McMillen Colbert, 1963; Patricia
Gillespie of Gamma Kappa, 1964; Natalie S. Hartzell,
1970-1972; Sue Evans, 1977-1980; Kathy Rodeffer of Beta Eta,
1980-1981; Sue Robash Carr of Delta Delta, 1981-1989; Suzanne Venit
Sturgis of Beta Eta, 1989-1991; Cathy Miles of Epsilon Omega,
1991-1997; Nicole Kinsley O’Rourke of Zeta Upsilon, 1997-1998; Melanie
LeBlanc Meehan of Delta Delta, 1998-2000; Maisha Davis of Epsilon
Omega, 2001-2003; Cathy Miles of Epsilon Omega (again), 2003-2004 and
2005-2006; Kathryn Garrett Kelly of Eta Delta, 2007-2009; Tom Franklin
of Gamma Kappa, 2010-2011; Nicole Kemp of Zeta Upsilon, 2011-present.
In thanks to this subset of legacy leaders of the TBS
NED, the District Council has voted to extend honorary membership to three more
of these wonderful Sisters – all of whom have gone on to serve our Sisterhood
at the national level, and all of whom have continued over the years to pour
their love to the chapters and members of the Northeast District. At the
Tau Beta Sigma Northeast District Convention, held March 22-23, 2013 at the
University of Massachusetts we will induct past counselors Sue Carr
(current chair of TBSAA), Melanie Meehan (currently on the Board of Trustees),
and Kathryn Kelly (immediate past TBS NVPSP). As we get closer we will
have extended biographies available for your reading.
Extending this honorary membership is
something that we are so happy to do, and I hope that you will all join in our
thanks to them at the convention in March at the University of Massachusetts.
[Fun Facts: Melanie was the presiding president at a convention at UMass where
she inducted Cathy Miles. She and Sue are both alumni of Delta Delta at
UMass. Kathryn’s last convention as Counselor was at UMass. What an
ironic year for UMass to host convention!] This truly should be a ceremony to
go down in history!
Nicole Kemp
TBS NED Counselor
Tau Beta Sigma-Life Member #2768, Zeta Upsilon
West Chester University
