Alumni Profile: John McConnell ‘68

John McConnell ‘68 recently shared with us some of his Beta Theta Pi memories, including the formal dates that did not last (plus the one that did), and the “free tree” incident that got the police involved. 

John pledged Beta Theta Pi at Denison University in 1964, and he activated in the spring with a GPA of 2.75. “So, you can see, I was a very average student,” he said. 

According to John, out of everything he did during his time in the fraternity, he remembers the formal parties the most.  

John noted that while the house was “beautifully decorated” for the Pledge formal party, he does not recall his date’s name. “Clearly, we did not last long as a couple.”  

“I had several lovely dates that year ending with the Spring formal to which I invited the girl that eventually became my Beta Sweetheart,” John said. “Many years later we are still together. Poor girl!” 

At Denison, John majored in Economics with “modest distinction,” and he lettered in football in his freshman and sophomore years “also without much distinction.”   

Despite not playing lacrosse prior to being at Denison, he decided to take up the sport in his freshman year. “I managed to letter my sophomore, junior and senior years and my academic performance improved considerably,” John said. 

Although John noted that his memory is “not all that great,” one interesting Beta story from Denison stuck out to him—the “free tree” incident.  

“I do recall that our freshman year, the pledges were assigned to gather pine bows to decorate the living room of the house,” John said. “One of the actives, I believe it was Sanford White, claimed he had discovered an easy accessible patch of free for the taking pine trees.” 

“The pledges boarded a truck to gather pine bows. It was two days later that we were informed by the DU police that Molly, whatever her name was, was not pleased. The Chapter president paid for the ‘free trees.’”