A Badge of Honor
By Bill Greer, Union University ’71, LZ 77
When you went through Lambda Chi Alpha recruitment, did you hear something like, “It’s not a four-year brotherhood, it’s for life”?
Hold onto that thought.
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Brother Tommy Wade’s wife is dying. After battling a cancerous tumor pressing on her brain for almost 21 years, Nancy likely won’t make it through the summer.
In December, doctors gave her 12 months if she finished her current regimen of chemotherapy, 3-6 months without it. Her first diagnosis, back in 1996, gave Nancy only two weeks to live, maybe three. Surgery, radiation, and chemo have stretched that out to almost 21 years.
But the tumor is now pressing on Nancy’s brain stem; soon, she will not be able to breathe.
So Nancy and her husband have ditched the chemo and, with the help of steroids, will enjoy what’s left of life. Wade – 1968 graduate of Union University, LZ 59 – is working all the angles to stay ahead of the bills.
Over the holidays, he sent a letter to his old Lambda Chi chapter in Jackson, TN, asking if anyone might want to buy his badge.
“I’m thinking, ‘It’s sitting in a cedar box doing nothing for the last 50 years,’” Wade said recently over burgers in his hometown of Dexter, MO, two hours northwest of Jackson. “I just thought I’d see if I could liquidate it. It’s not like we’re eating cat food or anything, but still, it was just lying around.”
High Alpha Parker Cassady, LZ 810, felt very strongly that the chapter should buy it.
“We brought it up to the chapter, and in 24 hours we had collected $800, even from associates, who had no clue what the badge meant,” said Will Tucker, current High Tau. “Several brothers chipped in who do not have a lot of money but just felt compelled to help this brother in need.”
The chapter dipped into its treasury for another $200.
Google Medicare and “doughnut hole” and you’ll understand why the $1,000 check was manna.
“You think about initiation, and that’s seared in my mind forever,” said Wade, who hoped for about $300 for the badge. “You could’ve knocked me over with a feather, as the old saying goes, the day I opened the mail and got that check.”
The chapter at Union, where undergraduate enrollment is 2,800, strongly reflects the ritual, which should be no surprise. Seven Grand High Alpha awards in the last 30 years. Two Order of Merit winners. One Order of Achievement.
But it’s not the awards, it’s the brotherhood.
“When you’re going through recruitment, so many times you hear guys harping on how brotherhood is forever,” Tucker said. “But you’re thinking, ‘After college, after four years, it doesn’t really matter.’ But this is … someone we have no connection with other than the bonds of Lambda Chi Alpha.”
“So this brother from the early days of our chapter, whom none of us had met or heard of, in his time of need, we, as brothers, felt so strongly about our fraternity and its ideals and standards, we all thought it was important to help a brother out,” Tucker said. “It was neat to see the words ‘brotherhood is forever’ put into action and not just spoken.”
And Wade’s badge? The Union chapter presented it to the new colony at Middle Tennessee State University as its rotating High Alpha badge. Coincidentally, Wade earned his master’s degree at MTSU in Murfreesboro, two and hours east of Jackson.
