[20672] in APO-L
What is an APO?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Pam Decker)
Tue Jul 13 02:02:56 1999
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 23:03:27 -0700
Reply-To: Pam Decker <pamanator@YAHOO.COM>
From: Pam Decker <pamanator@YAHOO.COM>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Greetings Brothers!
Our VP Membership officer came across this document in
one of our old binders. It is dated in terms of the
single gender and such. But we found it really
inspiring and thought we would pass it on.
To the Brothers of Alpha Rho, check this past
president out. We would be curious to know of his
record with your chapter, especially since you were
our sponsor chapter back in 76!
Forgive me if many of you have seen this and this is a
repeat. I've been w/ APO for two years and have not
seen this before last night.
In the Spirit of Brotherhood,
Pam Decker
President, Omega Gamma
Angelo State Univ
"Daddy's Girl"
*******************************************************
What is an APO?
An APO is ignorant and has a distorted sense of
values. He is so ignorant that he doesn't know
something is impossible and he goes ahead and does.
It. He is so backward that he still believes in the
ideas that made his country great. He denies the
proposition that it is not what you know, but who you
know that counts and things that success comes to the
man who can deliver the goods. He is so mixed up that
he thinks it is better to be right than rich, and that
he can rise highest by staying on the level. He
thinks it is better to be free than secure - and
looks for a helping hand at the end of his own arm.
An APO is so inexperienced that he cannot solve the
sticky problem by sitting in an air-conditioned office
and drifting into the cool stratosphere of abstract
thought. He has to put his shoulder to the wheel and
his hand in God's hand, and prey like a lost sinner
while he totes the barges and lifts the bales.
You cannot recognize an APO just looking at him. To an
under privileged child at Christmas he looks like
Santa Claus. To the lost, bewildered freshman at
registration time he looks like the Good Samaritan and
his Father Confessor. To the thousands who see him
sweating under the spring sun to get the vote tallied
he looks like Uncle Sam in a limp shirt. To the
harassed, overworked Scout Executive, the APO ever
eager to take on the job no one else had time for,
looks like the Scout Oath and Law personified. To a
worried university administrator he is an army of help
or leader unafraid to soil his hands with the clean
dirt of hard work.
And even if you know an APO today, you won't know him
tomorrow. Today, in order to stay in school, he may be
an obscure part time clerk; but after a while as an
APO, after becoming aware of and getting into the
bloodstream of civic affairs, he'll graduate and soon
will be hiring and firing clerks by the dozen. But
meanwhile he'll spend time on committees, or running
around on cold nights, working on some project, or
standing on the street corner telling people where to
vote and come, and listen, and be concerned. And
he'll start getting public recognition that is not
actively seeking. People he doesn't know from Adam
will call him by name on the street; and he'll be on
speaking terms with hundreds he never heard before;
his professors and his boss will begin to realize what
a valuable person he is; and his fellow citizens and
classmates will be turning to him for leadership. And
he'll be lucky if his best girl thanks enough of his
(or wife loves him enough) not to gripe like the
dickens because he doesn't spend more time with her.
But his real reward will be the conformable
realization that he is doing things that build
communities and states and nations. He can say with
solemn pride that while others stayed in the backyard,
he came forward and threw down the gauntlet to the
problem and injustices that hung over his campus and
community. He can say that while others followed the
crowd, he followed his conscience; and that he was
working to keep every dot ad dash in the Constitution
while others were concerned only with putting kudos in
the yearbook or with putting dollar signs on the
ledger. When some merely moaned, "We have a problem,
what will we do?" he was ready to step in. While
others just pointed at the dirt, he was swinging a
broom.
J. Crozier Brown
Past President, Alpha Rho
University of Texas
===
***********************************************
* Pam Decker (AKA:"PRC" & "Daddy's Girl") *
* Omega Gamma Chapter President *
* Angelo State University *
* San Angelo, Texas *
* http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2590 *
* http://www.angelo.edu/org/alphaphi *
_________________________________________________________
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