Over the years, he actually made three small donations – always in cash.

 

But it didn’t stop there.

 

‘O Lord’ he wrote

 

David also proudly wrote two prayers for Sigma Chi’s campaign, which were shared widely and read during our Groundbreaking Ceremony and the Centennial Reunion. David took his writing very seriously and asked for research to help him get the prayers just right. He took particular effort to inspire new brothers.

 

“Now, as we break ground for the building of a new Chapter House,” he wrote, “we pray that all who become members of this Chapter of our Fraternity may be Men of Good Character, Students of Fair Ability, With Ambitious Purposes, Congenial Dispositions, Possessed of Good Morals, Having a High sense of Honor, and a Deep sense of Personal Responsibility, as the Jordan Standard states as set forth and declared by Isaac M. Jordan and all our Founders in 1855.” And “O Lord, may we accomplish the goal of designing and building a place where all of the undergraduate brothers of Beta Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Chi can live, study, and work under one roof.”

 

He often sought visits with his Sigma Chi brothers during the rare vacation time granted to him. As time went by, he grieved that many were passing on. “At the time that the big reunion was being planned last year,” he wrote in an email, “I found myself wondering just how many of those in my time in Beta Upsilon are left.” As a devoutly religious man, he surely contemplated his own mortality. 

 

‘I don’t think this is it’

 

And perhaps that was part of the motivation for his most touching gift of all. Items of value are not welcome in a monastery. He recalled that his Sigma Chi gold ring had, for decades, been in deep storage in an attic at his childhood home in Spokane. It was being readied to rent by his relatives and he feared the ring would be lost forever. But his niece Jennifer Allen Lucke and her husband, perhaps warmed by David’s kindness and sincerity, went on a mission to search for it. Eve after eve, dark corner and dark corner, box after box – and nothing. On one final look into what was the last dark corner, Jennifer’s husband found a ring. “He told me ‘I don’t think this is it - there is a ring in this box, but it looks like it may have more to do with his church life because it has a white cross on it’.’ Jennifer is an Alpha Phi and knew right away the White Cross meant Sigma Chi. They’d found it. “He was very eager to make sure this ring got to the right place,” she said.

 

Now that ring will be made into a necklace to be worn at events by each year’s WSU Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, beginning now with Centennial Sweetheart Jade McShane. “I would be honored to be the first,” Jade said. “Very special for all the Sweethearts!”

 

In his last days, David “knew where was going,” his niece said. As a man who devoted his life to God, his friends to comfort in knowing he must’ve been at peace and certain of his next destination.

 

Drawn to a society of brotherhood

 

Sigma Chi was not his only society of brotherhood. Right after college, David enlisted in the Navy and saw active duty in Korea. The military was another form of brotherhood for David. Shortly after his tour, he began his life in the church. Yet another form of brotherhood. His third.

 

“Brotherhood, brotherhood, brotherhood,” concluded his niece.

 

He is described in his obituary as “gently welcoming, kindly attentive and calmly perceiving of the needs of others.”

 

David’s story is now on display in the trophy cases at the new chapter house. We thank you, brother David, for your fraternal bonds. And we know you’re listening.