Iowa Beta Newsletters

You’d think Jim’s next move would be to head to Iowa City for college but he went a lot further than that. Instead, he rode out to the University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY to begin his freshman year. Grove was not sure what his career path would be at the time and his dad had a nephew who lived out there and worked for the railroad. The Groves had visited the nephew’s family when Jim was a freshman in high school.

“I thought, this would be an exciting and romantic to go to school and live out in the Wild West and that is where I pledged SAE,” Grove said. He was initiated into the fraternity on March 1, 1959 and received SAE badge number 103575.

Grove, who was majoring in forestry his freshman year, decided that summer that he was going back closer to home and transfered to the University of Iowa.

But before arriving in Iowa City, Grove attended the 25th SAE Leadership School in Evanston, IL.

“Anne I grew up together, believe it or not…we’ve know each other for 70 years,” he said. “And I really couldn’t tell you why I transferred to Iowa City…but Anne would probably tell you it was to be with her, because she was there.”

Jim moved into the SAE house at 303 N. Riverside (now called 302 Ridgeland Ave) at the start of his sophomore year of college and lived there through his senior year. Because he was a transfer from Laramie, his brothers gave him the nickname “Cowboy.”

The Cowboy married his darlin’ Anne in June of 1963, soon after she earned her diploma. Anne took a job teaching in Rockford, IL. Jim joined the Navy shortly after the wedding and served for four years. 

Jim returned to Iowa City in 1967 to finish out his studies and received his shingle in Recreation Leadership in 1968.

“I didn’t finish my degree on time because you could say I had a lot of fun as an undergrad,” he laughed. “I had the hours but I didn’t have a decent enough grade-point average. I was not near as serious as my two children were. They both graduated from Iowa in four years.”

The Recreation Leadership program has changed its name over the years. It was once called Leisure Studies and now goes by the name Therapeutic Recreation. It is part of the Department of Health and Human Physiology.

“Iowa has one of the finest colleges if you want to go into this kind of field,” he said. “When I was there my classmates and I went to help program at university hospitals as well as the VA and children’s hospitals.”

Grove entered the Navy as a recruit, even though he had taken the mandatory ROTC classes his freshman and sophomore years. The Vietnam War was part of the American fabric and Grove had run though his student deferment exemption.

“I did not want to go to the jungles of Vietnam,” he said. “So my thought was to join the Navy and I would at least serve aboard a ship.”

He went to boot camp at Naval Training Station Great Lakes and spent the rest of his Navy career in Norfolk, VA. Anne joined him at Norfolk and taught school for two years. Jeff Grove (IABE ’88), Jim’s only son, was born at Portsmouth Naval Hospital.

“After serving in the Navy, which helped me get my head on square, my attitude toward higher education significantly changed,” he said. “I knew I did not want to be in the military and I knew it was time to get serious about things. I mean at this point I am married and have a child. It sure changes perspective on things. So I went back to Iowa on the GI bill and graduated in ’68.”

Grove said that a big part of the reason he struggled in college was because in high school he did not have to study. He was able to maintain a B average without cracking a book. And when he went to the university level, he had no study habits to help him stay on track.

“You cannot wing it now days,” Grove said. “I know my children had to manage their time at Iowa in the 1980s and use the habits they were taught in high school. For me growing up, life was sort of one big party.”

Cowboy said Jeff’s approach was much different.

Grove continued: “A lot of time he would not get home until 9 p.m. and he would go straight to his studies.

"Jeff was very disciplined and it paid off in college."

Jeff pledged the Iowa Beta chapter and was initiated into the fraternity on February 15, 2005. Jeff received SAE badge number 196379 and was pinned by his father.

“My daughter, Julia, was slightly different,” he said. “In high school she did not need to study all that much. However, when she got to Iowa, she was in athletic training and was taking a lot of medical-related courses. It was a wake-up call for her. In high school, she was innately smart. She would go into her room to knock out her homework and come out 10 minutes later and say, ‘I’m done,’ ” he laughed.

Grove said the jobs in his field in 1968 were plentiful. He interviewed for about eight positions in the Midwestern states. Based in Mount Carroll, Jeff would stay with his grandparents as Jim and Anne went on the interview trail. He ended up taking a job in Kenosha, WI as the program director at the Kenosha Youth Foundation, which was similar in nature to a YMCA.

Julia was born in Kenosha. After a 10-year stint there, he interviewed at the Oregon, IL Park District. The town is only 40 miles from Mount Carroll. He landed the job in the fall of 1978 and the District was in the midst of annexing the Byron Nuclear generating station. The result of the annexation significantly increased the assessed value of the district.

“The passing of the annexation was a no-brainer,” Grove said. “The residents were going to pay less in taxes and get more benefits. I enjoyed a great job there for 24 years living in a small town, and directing a district with so many assets to work with.”

Grove went from an office on the second floor above a clothing store downtown to having a 60,000-square-foot recreation center with an indoor pool, a gymnasium, weight rooms and racquetball courts. Also while he was there, the district built a field house next to the high school.

“This set up was a dream for people in my profession,” he said. “In 1984, the Nash Recreation Center was built.”

Anne worked the majority of her career with Head Start. It was a job that gave her the opportunity to be home in the afternoon to look after Jeff and Julia.

“It was not a get-rich job but it was highly satisfying for her and our family,” Grove said.

Jim retired as the executive director of the Oregon Park District in 2003 and Anne called it quits as well.

“We wanted to move somewhere south,” he said. “We did not want to spend any more winters in northern Illinois.

“Jeff was working a job in Indianapolis and we had a tradition to summer vacation with the families of both our two kids. Julia was working as an athletic trainer and went to New York City because she had a boyfriend, Marvin, who grew up and lived there.”

Julia and Marvin were married and working in Manhattan during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After three years living in NYC, she grew tired of her commute and wanted to relocate.

In the summer of 2005, Jeff happened to be living in Louisville working for INA, a German industrial manufacturer, as a district sales manager. The entire family was vacationing in Williamsburg, VA in July when Marvin announced that he had a job interview in Louisville. He interviewed, got the job and now Julia and Jeff’s families were going to be living in the same city.

“Anne and I went to Louisville that fall to take care of our grandson, Nick, as well as help Julia and Marvin move,” Grove said. “And Anne said, ‘Let’s see if we can find a place to spend a week in the area after we are finished helping out.’ Anne is real good at getting on the internet and booking places.”

Anne found a timeshare in Fairfield Glade, TN, which is about 50 miles west of Knoxville. It’s a non age-restricted community of 8,000 people that is a combination of retirement living and timeshares.

“At first, we thought we wanted to be snow birds and live in two homes,” he said. “But after spending time there, we decided that we wanted to live there year round after talking with a realtor.A month later we bought a home in the Glade!”

The Groves moved on St. Patrick’s Day 2006 and have been there ever since.

“Most of the people here are from the Midwest,” he said. “But a few are from New York and California. Most people move here for golf. But I don’t play golf. There are five golf courses, 11 lakes, an indoor tennis center, two outdoor swimming pools, an indoor swimming pool, a wellness center…about everything you’d want. Plus you are close to all the major medical facilities in Nashville, Vanderbilt or Knoxville.”

Their home is four and half hours from Louisville, where Jeff and Julia are still raising their families.

Happy in retirement, Jim said he has found memories of his time as an SAE undergrad. Some of his chums were Jay Irvin (IABE ’63), who made a career as a judge in Shenandoah, IA but now lives in California, Denny Porter (IABE ’62), Steve “Max” McCue (IABE ’62) and Rhodes Lawton (IABE ’62).

“There used to be a bar in the basement of Jefferson Hotel (now the Jefferson Building) called the Hubbub,” Grove said. “The Jefferson Hotel at the time was the tallest building in town. And that is where we would go after you were done studying to socialize.

“Back then, Iowa had state liquor stores. The only thing you could get at a bar, like the Airliner, was beer. If you wanted wine or hard liquor you had to have this passbook and purchase your beverages from the state store.

“So it created this problem where if you were at one location and you did not finish your fifth of whatever you opened at one locale, you were in violation of the open container law if you drove to another location. It did not make any sense to have that kind of a liquor control system!”

Grove said there were places that could be rented as party rooms and they would sell set ups and beer. He said there was a place in Swisher, IA called The Little Den, which was in the basement of a restaurant. Another haunt that is no longer in existence was a dance hall on the Iowa River called Coral Shores.

A big house, where the Mayflower Apartments are presently located, used to be rented out for formals and other social events,” said Grove. “I know that the SAEs had at least one formal there. In fact Anne was crowned 'SAE Sweetheart' at that spring formal."  Anne was a Chi Omega at Iowa, and also a “Little Sister of Minerva”. There is picture of the little sisters in front of the house in the 1962 yearbook.

He said the brothers also would road trip to Cedar Rapids to hang out at the Roosevelt or the Sheraton for formals. In that town, he also recalled a barge-like boat on the Cedar River that could be rented to cruise up and down the river where you could drink and cut the rug.

“The SAEs did not zero in on any particular sorority,” he said. “We had good times with all of them. And we did a lot of serenading back then. And even the year I was at Wyoming… those boys sang a lot too.”

Grove said the fraternities and sororities would have music competitions and there were rehearsals and performances.

“In the house we had a grand piano and Dave Lanning (IABE ’61) would play the piano fantastically,” he said. “And a lot of times, we just got around the piano after dinner and sang into the night.”

He said the SAE house consisted of three large living areas: the big hole, the little hole and the penthouse and several study rooms.

“I lived at least a semester in each the big hole, little hole and penthouse” Grove said. “These living arrangements, at least when I was there, were not real conducive for studying,” he laughed.

Grove said the SAEs had strong membership from brothers who hailed from Waterloo, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.

“One brother in particular, Steve Schultz (IABE ’65) from Waterloo, was a unifier and still is,” Grove said. “Steve still organizes reunions and get-togethers. And Steve has this notion that I am special…and I don’t know why. Maybe Anne knows. But Steve was two or three years behind me and I didn’t really get to associate that much with him in the house but I don’t know…he likes me. Steve is a great guy.”

Grove credits his SAE experience with giving him a vehicle to grow socially and bond with people.

“SAE gave me a chance to develop some leadership skills,” he said. “I was the house manager among other things. Smaller experiences in the SAE organization gave me a foundation and reference point to help me when I took on larger leadership roles later in my career.”

Grove said he was a lot more outgoing in high school than his son, Jeff, so Cowboy’s SAE experience was not that dramatic in terms of social development.

“When Jeff left for college, he would hardly converse with you,” Grove said. “If some adult came up to him and addressed him, Jeff might only give a one-word answer. After he became an SAE at Iowa, he blossomed. He now is a regional manager in sales for a large corporation.

“He can talk to anybody. His development of social skills and communication from his SAE experience is absolutely phenomenal. Joining SAE, for him, was a game-changer.”

In 2013, Jim and Jeff Grove became the first father and son duo to join the Iowa Beta Alumni Association.  They have both been strong supporters of its programs and initiatives.

Jim said he feels blessed looking back. He had a magical childhood, a wonderful fraternal experience, successful kids, a rewarding career and a darlin’ wife who has stood by his side for five decades.

“If there is one thing I have learned in all my years, treat people with respect,” Grove said. “You may be the only person all day long who offers them an encouraging word and it can make all the difference…more than you can imagine.”

Now them’s words you can stick under your hat, Cowboy.

Call me Papa.

Papa G also is OK, but please don’t call me John. I always hated that name. Sorry to anyone else named John, but it is just so boring. Johnny is strictly prohibited, but exemptions have been granted to my mom, an aunt and my godmother (who still sends me socks as a gag gift).

So if you want my attention, call me Papa. Second choice is Gilardi. But please not John.

This story involves some travel through time, wondering how times accelerates as we get older, how we are all letting the days go by, how it would be great to live again in Iowa City.

It also involves how the lyrics to this old Talking Heads song somehow encapsulates my life so far – spending the last 20 years in another part of the world, about the thrill of driving wicked fast on the German Autobahn and not ending up dead. The beautiful house and beautiful wife, well, check off those lines after 12 years of marriage and the ex-wife. I would even settle for a shotgun shack – but only in Iowa City.

So let me explain how I got here, which means Bensheim, Germany, a city of about 40,000 people about 30 miles south of Frankfurt. This town represents typical suburbia in Germany, but a really old example since Bensheim was founded in 750 A.D. as part of the Holy Roman Empire.

Let’s go back 30 years to the spring of 1985. I was a smart-ass pledge at Iowa Beta, a freshman at the University of Iowa wanting to get a degree, learn journalism and enjoy life in Iowa City.

If you want to blame someone for me getting into Iowa Beta, then point the fingers at Greg Miller (IABE '86) and Joel “J.B.” Glass (IABE '86). They were my heroes at The Daily Iowan. I had met these two yahoos after somehow talking my way onto the sports staff as a punk freshman in the fall of 1984.

I also met them during rush week. I am the first to admit I made a huge mistake in not pledging Iowa Beta right off the bat. I loved Iowa Beta, the people and the spirt, the heterogeneity of the members. You simply could not put a stereotype on this house like you could with others on campus.

Suburban Chicago guys? Face guys from Des Moines? Guys from Small Town Iowa? Catholics? Protestants? Jews? Jocks? Smart guys? Geeks? This house had it all, and they were bound together by a common spirit, one that I would later learn to be Phi Alpha.

I was unfortunately distracted by the relative youth of this house and whether the Iowa Beta gang could really survive this effort to get back on campus. I balked and pledged another house, but quickly realized within days the errors of my ways. The only hope I had was finding a way back to Iowa Beta – and am so grateful to Marc Rosenow (IABE '86) and others who accepted me into the house for that chance.

Miller, aka "Milz" and J.B., who would become my pledge granddad and dad, were True Gentlemen, friends and supporters during this learning experience. More so, I learned a lesson for life: Listen to both your heart and mind as well as your gut when facing big decisions, trust them and go for it.

The nickname Papa came during my time as a pledge in the spring of 1985 and my freshman year. The grantor was Mike Keough (IABE '86). Papa Gilardi. Italian restaurant. Great pizza. Papa G. Papa. “Hey Papa!” Get it?

I love that guy Keough. I wish we could talk more often and catch up on the financial markets, our kids, why the Bears suck and life as it goes by. He’s the reason I am doing what I am today working in corporate communications and dealing with the financial community and investors around the world. 

But he’s got a tough job, also has kids to raise like me and many of us, and that is such a top priority. He should thank his lucky stars every day that Jen Elder said “yes” to him at the altar.

Let’s move forward to the spring of 1995. We met up once in Paris when Keough and Jen Elder were living in London. Here’s a picture of Keough sprawled across a sofa in the hotel lobby. Paris was never the same. Neither was that sofa.

The Papa nickname just recently crossed the Atlantic and is now part of my life in Germany, the place I have called home since December 15, 1994. Yes, that is no typo – 20 years in Germany (and includes six years “abroad” in Switzerland).

On that day, when I arrived in Frankfurt back in 1994 to work as a foreign correspondent for the international news agency Reuters, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 3,765.47 points. 

Want to feel old? Bill Clinton was only in his first term in the White House. Who knew then I would eventually work for a company called QIAGEN that has revolutionized DNA testing and enabled the FBI to analyze “the stain on the blue dress.” 

DNA testing back then was science fiction, but it is now part of our everyday lives. The DNA results proved Slick Willie was a liar and a cheat. I already knew that about him through first-hand experience a few years earlier covering his presidential campaign while working for Reuters in Houston.

Yeah, thanks Kopes, as in Steve Koppel (IABE '88), for transplanting the "Papa" nickname.

Steve is the one Iowa Beta guy who has been a constant in my life during the last 30 years. We were pledge brothers together, lived next-door to each other in The Lodge our sophomore year and clicked as friends. I have a vague memory of even meeting him during Orientation Week.

We were both from the Chicago suburbs, interested in journalism and communications, loved to tell bad jokes, threw Yiddish terms at each other. He can kick my butt at golf, even if he just has a driver, 7-iron and putter. He’s still such a skinny guy; I have put on too much weight.

Wherever I have lived in the world – Chicago, Houston, Basel or Frankfurt – he has always contacted me to meet up. I try to do the same when going through Chicago, but he makes such an effort, one that I really appreciate and admire and see as a strength of his Phi Alpha character. This was even before the internet and Facebook when catching up with friends was not so lickety-split easy.

Back in 1993 on a typical sweltering, beyond-hot Houston day, Steve came through Houston to manage a sports memorabilia trade show. He got me into the show and I had a baseball to get some autographs – for me - not to sell as collectibles. Thanks to him, I got to meet my childhood hero Johnny Bench as well as Frank Robinson.

Somehow there was no car available to take the ornery former Baltimore Orioles skipper to the airport, so I volunteered.

Robinson sneered at me, “So I bet you want me to sign your baseball?”

I gave him a standard Papa response: “You got three options: You can wait here and miss your flight. You can still make your flight and let me take you to the airport and sign my ball. Or you can give me 50 bucks for the ride, and I’ll even give you a receipt."

Let’s just say he signed my ball and we laughed all the way to George Bush International Airport. I still have that ball today on my desk.

Even during my time in Basel, part of a period when I spent 18 years working for Big Pharma companies in Europe after having made the switch to corporate life, we had the chance to spend time seeing the Swiss mountains and lakes when Steve came through town for work. My kids – Amelia (15) and Luis (11) – loved him and his funny Chicago accent. More so they liked someone talking trash at their dad.

The most recent meeting was in September. This time in Munich, when Steve was again in Europe on a cool work trip. I brought along my partner Nicola (I hate the term girlfriend for old people like us), and Kopes called out as a greeting at the airport, “Hey Papa, how ya doing…” She asked, “Ah, who or what is Papa?”

Steve told her the story, she laughed and now it has stuck here in Germany. Yeah, thanks Kopes.

Let’s be honest. I was never the most active “active.” I came as much as possible to the house meetings, attended parties and took part in as many events and house life as I could.

But I was also not really a regular college student. I did my coursework and met the requirements of what my parents called the “Gilardi Scholarship,” a deal that they would pay the freight as long as I kept at least a 3.0 GPA.

Most of my free time outside of class was spent working as a journalist, learning the trade as a freelancer for The Des Moines Register, USA Today and Sports Illustrated during my sophomore and junior years, and then serving as editor of The Daily Iowan during my senior year.

But I had a partner in crime inside the house: Mike Cleff (IABE '87), my roommate during junior year. Unlike me, Cleffer was fortunately born with a face for TV and a voice for radio. Cleffer was the guy working for the TV station up in Waterloo, while I was the guy working for the Register.

Together we went off to cover everything under the sun involving sports: from high school sports on a Thursday night to Iowa facing off against a Big Ten rival on national TV on Saturday in a rock-and-rolling Kinnick Stadium. Having Cleffer as a work colleague – and even more so as a brother and career role model – made these experiences even more memorable to me today.

The irony is that my ties to Sigma Alpha Epsilon have become even stronger after leaving Iowa City. During graduate school at Northwestern, the Levere Memorial Temple was just across the street. I would sometimes go over between classes, take a seat in the chapel and just think and ponder about whatever was on my mind. I also got to know Ken Tracy, who was then Eminent Supreme Recorder, and even considered a PR internship at national.

Another way the fraternity bonds have grown stronger has been through the wisdom that accompanies getting older. Going through a crisis or tragedy can shake a person to the core. I have gone through them, so have many of you.

One involved my son, Luis, being born in 2005 with a congenital heart defect and wondering if he would survive, and that at the same time we were all getting ready to move to Switzerland in a few weeks. The other was going through a divorce. Other times have involved facing important issues at work, including difficult decisions about people and their careers.

What never fails to surprise me is the peace of mind and wisdom I find in reading The True Gentleman over and over again in such a situation. It was during that health crisis with the birth of my son, who is thankfully doing great, that I dug out my SAE membership card for the first time in a few years and realized what I had been missing.

The True Gentleman embodies the key tenets I hold important, and have become increasingly important to me with age. Think for a moment about what is important to you, the priorities in your life, how to raise your kids and be a good husband, how to deal with your business partners and act in many other situations of our everyday lives.

Now go read The True Gentleman and consider how this provides a way for you to live your life. Yeah, sure, we learn this by reading The Phoenix during our pledge period, but life experiences that come with time make it so much more valuable. And by the way, I still do remember there is no national test!

Indeed, this prose by John Walter Wayland grows on me day by day in ways I could have never imagined back in Iowa City.

A fraternity is built on people, not bricks and mortar. The spirit of a fraternity takes time to gel and mature, energy and effort to be created, determination and perseverance to be sustained.

I have been blown away as to how the Iowa Beta brothers, through the generations, have come together in response to the events of 2012, and the irony is not lost on me that we are now facing many of the same challenges our brothers faced in the early 1980s in trying to recolonize.

I am convinced our Iowa Beta leaders will succeed in returning undergraduates to the Iowa City campus. Same as it ever was. The very best fraternity.

On April 2, 2013, the Oakland Raiders traded Carson Palmer, a 2002 Heisman Trophy winner and former first round draft pick of the Cincinnati Bengals, where he played 8 seasons, to the Arizona Cardinals for a 2013 sixth round draft pick and a conditional pick in the 2014 NFL Draft.  

Palmer was an excellent individual player for the Bengals and achieved their first winning season in 15 years in 2005.  However, Palmer and the Bengals did not achieve lasting success as a team and he asked to be traded following a dismal 2010 season with a record of 4-12. Ultimately, Cincinnati traded Palmer to Oakland on October 18, 2011, after the Raiders lost their starting quarterback to injury. 

Drew Stanton was selected by the Detroit Lions in the second round of the 2007 NFL Draft as the 43^rd pick overall.  A stand-out in college, Stanton was a backup quarterback for the Lions but started in games when then-QB Jon Kitna or current QB Matthew Stafford became injured.

In 2012, he was signed by the New York Jets, but when the Jets acquired Tim Tebow Stanton requested to be traded or released. He was traded to the Indianapolis Colts, but the Colts started Andrew Luck over Stanton.