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Phi Beta Sigma Partners with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
By Bro. Gerald Smith
Executive Director Daryl Anderson, Deputy Director Steve
Ballard, Sigma-Beta Club Foundation President Atty. Arthur
Thomas, Director Dan Ashe, Sigma President Jonathan A.
Mason, Sr., Noemi Perez and Kevin Davis
Phi Beta Sigma was located for many years in the
New York area prior to purchasing its first headquarters
building in Washington, DC in the mid-1970s. There
was a sentimental reason to locate our headquarters in
Washington because Howard University (the place of
Phi Beta Sigma’s birth) is located in Washington, DC.
Another, and perhaps a more significant reason for
location in Washington, was because our federal government
is centered in Washington DC. Many of those
who made the initial decision recognized that an organization
deeply dedicated to public service should be
in a place where public service programs are structured
and funded.
For more than a decade our headquarters and our
officers played an integral part in the various congressional
and White House briefings and meetings which
helped to design public policy. And then, over the next
two decades, our participation dwindled. On April 23,
2014, under the leadership of our current International
President, Jonathan A. Mason, Sr., the relationship
between Phi Beta Sigma and the federal government
was reestablished in the form of an historic Memorandum
of Understanding with the U. S. Fish & Wildlife
Service. This Memorandum of Understanding was
orchestrated by Brother Kevin Davis (Iota Nu Sigma/
Chicago, IL) and Noemi Perez of the U. S. Fish & Wildlife
Service and signed by Brother Mason and Dan Ashe,
the Director of the Fish & Wildlife Service.
The signing of the MOU took on a more special
importance when the decision was made to dedicate the
signing of the MOU to the life of Brother Dr. George
Washington Carver. Brother Dr. Carver, who joined Phi
Beta Sigma in 1918 through the Gamma Sigma Chapter,
was a world-renowned agricultural and industrial
chemist whose expansive career is often diminished by
calling Brother Carver the “peanut man”; when, in fact,
Brother Carver developed in excess of three hundred
products from plant sources in areas ranging from cosmetics,
dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline, to nitroglycerin.
Director Ashe’s remarks expressed his joy that his
agency and Phi Beta Sigma were formally joining their
efforts. Director Ashe spoke so glowingly about Phi
Beta Sigma that our International President Mason
openly invited Director Ashe to become a member of
our wondrous band. In his prepared remarks, President
Mason indicated that Sigma is not focused or resting
on our past achievements; but, instead, we are moving
to contribute to the future – and the future particularly
of our young people. Departing from his prepared
remarks, President Mason spoke extemporaneously and
passionately about our young people, many of whom he
indicated “live in brick cities, have never gone ten miles
from their [immediate] neighborhood; and [who must
be taught and shown] that food comes from the ground
[rather than] from a box”. He hailed the MOU as a first
step in organizing programs to take young people from
the inner city to the country areas where they can interact
with fish, wildlife and agriculture – and where they
can come to appreciate the life and work of Brother Dr.
Carver.
Attending this important and historic ceremony with
President Mason were Brothers Jean B. Lamothe, International
Director of Education; Past Sigma President &
Current Sigma-Beta Foundation President, Brother Atty.
Arthur Thomas; Past Executive Directors, Gerald D.
Smith (#2) and Donald Jemison (#4), Current Executive
Director Daryl Anderson, Deputy Director Steve
Ballard, Kevin Davis and about a dozen members of Phi
Beta Sigma.
16 The Crescent Magazine | Spring/Summer 2014 Centennial Celebration