Monthly Knoxville Happenings

The Knoxville Alumni Chapter has two monthly events.  These events are open to all Phi Gamma Delta graduate brothers and undergraduates, both Kappa Taus and non Kappa Taus.

On the 2nd Tuesday of each month we have a luncheon at Naples Restaurant in Bearden.  The lunch starts at noon and is over at 1.  At 12:30 we have a short report on what's going on in the Phi Gam world then a guest speaker comes on for about 20 minutes.

On the last Tuesday of the month we hold an after work social gathering at a local restaurant.  Currently we are meeting at Aubrey's in Bearden.  Several wives show up each month and a number of the brothers stay and have dinner.  In the future we plan to try out a number of different establishments.

Tommy Wolf - Kappa Tau Purple Legionnaire

Tommy Wolf

Last Summer, Tommy Wolf (Kappa Tau 03) took over as Purple Legionnaire for the Kappa Tau Chapter.  Tommy has been doing an excellent job meeting with the undergraduates on a weekly basis and has been getting the cabinet to institute clearly defined objectives for the coming year.  The Purple Legionnaire role for a chapter is the most important alum job there is and Tommy certainly deserves a tremdendous amount of recognition for the great work he is doing with the chapter. 

Tommy lives in Knoxville and is a project manager for Joseph Construction Company.  His dad Todd is the CFO for Shoffner Mechanical in Knoxville and was a Kappa Tau, class of 83.  Tommy is married to Lisa Hearnsberger and they are expecting their first child in the Spring.

Renovations to the House

Over the last 3 years, the Kappa Tau house was totally refurbished.  The building that is.  This was the biggest renovation since the house was build in the mid 60s.  While the appearance of the house has not changed, the improvements have been enormous and the Kappa Tau hut once again is looking really good.

But the work is not over.  Last year, Steve Carr (Kappa Tau 73) has been raising money for interior furniture.  Steve has made great progress and a number of things have been added.  However, we still need furniture for the main living room and office.  Steve has been attempting to raise an additional $25,000 to complete the work.  If you can make a donation to the chapter, it would be greatly appreciated.  The donation can be made to the The University of Tennessee with a designation it is for Phi Gamma Delta renovations.  The donation is tax deductible if you do it thru UT.

For more information contact Steve Carr at Steve Carr e.steve.carr@gmail.com

High Tech Communicatons

Kappa Tau and the Knoxville Alumni Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta has been going high tech in order to keep in touch with brothers.  More and more we are relying on electronic communications but we have not totally abondended mail;  yet.

In an effort to update our alumni database last fall, we spent a considerable amount of time researching what was the best way to keep up with brothers and how to best communicate with them.  What we concluded was that for keeping track of guys, Facebook had the largest representation.  Around 600 of our 1700 brothers have a Facebook account.  If you use Facebook and we need to track you down beacuse your address has changed, we can almost always do it thru Facebook.


To communicate with brothers we are employing a wide range of tools.

• We have a Kappa Tau Facebook page where we post current information
• We have a Knoxville Alumni Chapter blog (which you are reading now)
• We have started a LinkedIn Group called Phi Gamma Delta - Kappa Tau Chapter
• We have a Kappa Tau website
• We send email reminders to local brothers about monthly events
• We have begun a bi-monthly electronic newsletter to brothers with emails
• The undergrads send out a mailout newsletter in the Spring and Fall
• We will be sending email reminders out about Pig Dinner
• There will be electronic event invitations

Please help us out.  Please keep your contact info up to date.  You can do this by sending any changes to massey6932@comcast.net.  When we get changes they are forward on to International. 

If you are on Facebook and you have not joined our Kappa Tau Fiji page, please do so.  I would also ask that you consider friending me on Facebook if we are not already friends.  We have been able to easily contact brothers thru Facebook to get updated info when we learn our information is out of date.  My Facebook contact info is facebook.com/MortMassey

Pig Dinner April 9th

Brian Douglas

Big things are in store for this year's Pig Dinner.  The date is April 9th and we are returning to Cherokee Country Club.  Our speaker this year will be Brian Douglas (Tennessee Tech 98).  Brian was elected as an Archon last August and was our former Section Chief.  Phi Gamma Delta is doing extremely well internationally and we wanted Brian to come in and tell us about how the fraternity is growing as well as report on some of the issues it is facing.

We have also decided to promote reunions.  I am not sure if we ever really had class reunions, but international is really pushing this to be a part of our Pig Dinner weekends.  This year's class reunions will be 50/51, 61, 76, 86, 91, 96, 01 and 06.  We have found brothes who are heading up the renuion efforts for all of the classes but 61, 96 and 01.  If you are interested in helping out with your reunion please let me know at massey6932@comcast.net.

The theme for this year's Pig Dinner is going to be a Return to Tradition.  Over the last few years it seems that much of the tradition we were use to just faded away.  Terrell Kerr (Kappa Tau 71) has agreed to be the program coordinator this year and will making sure our songs and rituals will be included.

Recently elected Knoxville County Clerk Foster Arnett (Kappa Tau 78) will be our Master of Ceremonies.  There will be a golf outing on Saturday if you are interested in playing.

Please plan on joining us April 9th at Cherokee.  You will be receiving invitations in February.  This year we will be requiring RSVPs and payment in advance.  We will be setting up payment via PayPal or you can just send us a check.

Alum Chapter to Become Knoxville Alumni Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta

Phi Gamma Delta International is underway with a multi year objective of expanding the number of Phi Gam chapters.  This effort is not just undergraduate chapters but also graduate chapters.  Over the last 6 years or so, the number of graduate chapters has almost doubled and International's hopes to double it again.

The Knoxville alum group has historically been made up almost entirely of Kappa Tau graduates.  We are in a movement to change that.  While there are some 300 brothers in the area that went to UT, there are also around 180 Phi Gam brothers who live in the area who attended other universities.  To better describe who we are, we are renaming our group to the Knoxville Alumni Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta.

We have begun a program to reach out to our non Kappa Tau brothers and invite them to participate with us.  We are using mailings, emailings and direct solicitations to contact these brothers and let them know about our local chapter.

If you would like to assist in the effort, please let me know at massey6932@comcast.net.

Tom Bell - Politician, Businessman, Civic Leader

Who would have predicted that Tom Bell (Kappa Tau 1972) would aspire to such great heights while hanging out at the Phi Gamma Delta house in the early 1970s.  But Tom was already well on his way before leaving UT.  A couple of his first jobs was working for senators Howard Baker and Bill Brock.  He went on to work for Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign, Lamar Alexander’s successful Tennessee gubernatorial bid, Dan Quayle’s first run for the Senate, and Ronald Reagan’s challenge of President Gerald Ford for the presidential nomination in 1976.

From there, Tom’s career trajectory veered into the business world. He was executive vice president of Ball Corp. in Muncie, Indiana, for two years, then returned to Washington to work for marketing giant Young & Rubicam Inc., eventually becoming CEO of the public affairs unit, Burson-Marsteller. He left for Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. but was lured back to Young & Rubicam by Peter Georgescu, whom he succeeded as CEO of the international firm.

Eventually, Tom was asked to be the CEO of Cousins Properties in Atlanta.  In 2009, he stepped down from Cousins and became an investor and chairman of SecurAmerica, a national commercial security firm. He is also is chairman of Goddard Investment Group, a real estate partnership.  In June of 2010, Tom was elected as the chairman of board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 


Tom lives in Atlanta.