Handcrafted Iranian Server Finds Permanent Home at Oklahoma

Beta Theta Pi — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 14:55:44 +0000

Betas in Norman received quite an archival surprise last October when House Corporation President Zach Allen, Oklahoma ’85, received a gift from the family of Doug Banks ’53, containing a brilliant, 23-inch brass server emblazoned with the Beta coat of arms.

As detailed by Doug’s son, Trent, his father “served in the U.S. Army and was assigned to Iran in the early 1960s when it was still our ally. He commissioned the hand-crafted tray while he was stationed there and proudly displayed it in our home his entire life.”

Upon graduation from the University of Oklahoma, Doug was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. In June 1960, he was assigned as the assistant headquarters commandant of the Fixed Wing and Rotary Wing Flight School in Iran. There, he helped train Iranian military officers to fly helicopters and planes.

Naturally, being in a foreign country, Brother Banks wanted to take souvenirs back home to the United States. He purchased several hand-crafted brass trays of various shapes and sizes with exotic Persian designs carved into them from a small local shop. One of these trays was approximately five-feet in diameter, which his family used as a coffee table.

Realizing the brass tray shop did all the hand-crafting on site, he asked if they could carve Beta Theta Pi coat of arms onto a tray. The shop owner said he could and Doug commissioned the work to be done. Doug proudly displayed this 23-inch Pi brass tray in his home for his entire life.

Incidentally, Doug Banks met Sara Lynn Groves, another American living in Iran, and married her shortly after returning to the United States.

Over the course of his military career, he became a Master Aviator. He was called to serve in Vietnam, too, and was Airborne and Ranger. After 24 years of service, Doug retired from his post in 1977 at the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Doug carried on the Beta and military legacy from his father, Hugh L. Banks, Oklahoma State 1921. Shortly into his studies, Hugh’s college experience was interrupted by the onset of World War I. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving with the 13th Aero Squadron in France. Brother Hugh unfortunately passed away in 1944 when Doug was just a teenager. However, Doug received a college scholarship for World War I orphans, and without this scholarship, he could not afford to go to college.

Lt. Col. Doug Banks, Oklahoma ’53, was son to World War I veteran Hugh Banks, Oklahoma State 1921.

Finding himself settled in Indialantic, Florida, he became a realtor and was heavily involved in the community, including Rotary Club. He passed away in 2004 at age 73.

As the Oklahoma chapter’s original dining room was converted into a stunning Beta museum when the house was expanded and renovated in 2015, the Banks server adds to Gamma Phi’s vast collection of treasures — symbolic of the chapter’s storied 118-year legacy at OU.

The post Handcrafted Iranian Server Finds Permanent Home at Oklahoma appeared first on Beta Theta Pi Fraternity.

The 175th Anniversary of the Snowball Rebellion

Beta Theta Pi — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 19:43:55 +0000

It all started on Wednesday, January 12, 1848. There had been a large snowfall in Oxford. Some students were on their way back from a prayer meeting in town. They rolled perhaps a dozen huge snowballs and filled in the first floor of Old Main. They had gotten a day’s play for a long night’s work. The next day the janitor worked for an hour to clear a passage. Though at least one of the faculty thought it was amusing, President Erasmus MacMaster—who was already outspoken against fraternities and secret societies—was in a towering rage: he was going to find the guilty and expel them, he was determined to make Miami “a decent college.”

The next night, a larger crowd of students made a much more impenetrable barrier, and wreaked more havoc, nailing the doors shut, filling the hall with wood and snow, removing the college bell and dropping it in the cistern. There were no classes that Friday, and none the next week, either, while the trials began. The students would admit their own guilt, but would not implicate others. Finally a list of 46 was arrived at, who would neither admit their guilt nor make any promise for the future. They were dismissed from Miami. Of the 20 seniors, only 9 were left, and only 5 of the 12 juniors remained. This was not strictly speaking a Greek affair, but a campus-wide stunt. Yet it hurt the fraternities severely as Alpha Delta Phi and Beta Theta Pi had lost members. No Betas were at Miami after all was said and done; three Betas were dismissed and two more left by the end of the spring.

However, some good did come as a result, especially with the life of the Fraternity so strong at other schools. The three students dismissed—Edmund Harris Munger, Robert Vance Moore and James Warnock—soon after founded Beta Theta Pi at Centre College in Kentucky, which has prevailed as the Fraternity’s oldest active chapter in Kentucky today, and celebrates its own 175th anniversary later this year.

In 1963, one hundred and fifteen years later, this event affecting the fraternities was humorously re-enacted by Miami students after another heavy snowfall.

— Adapted from The Faithful Home of the Three Stars.

The post The 175th Anniversary of the Snowball Rebellion appeared first on Beta Theta Pi Fraternity.

From the Archives Archives | Beta Theta Pi Fraternity

Handcrafted Iranian Server Finds Permanent Home at Oklahoma

Lt. Col. Doug Banks, Oklahoma ’53, was son to World War I veteran Hugh Banks, Oklahoma State 1921.

The 175th Anniversary of the Snowball Rebellion