1930–31 Volume 55 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

Vol. LV, No. 1While attending Vanderbilt Joe waspresident of Tennessee Alpha for threedifferent terms and attended the GeneralConventions at Birmingham, Alabama,in 1914 and Atlanta, Georgia, in1920. He was also, during his stay atVanderbilt, a member of the Owl Club(junior honorary), the CommodoreClub (senior honorary) and the $ A ALegal Fraternity, as well as presidentof his second year law class.When war was declared in April,1917, Joe was one of the first to volunteerbut due to his small stature andlack of weight he was consistently refusedenlistment. He thereupon registeredfor the draft, awaited his turn,and continued his studies at Vanderbiltand was elected manager of the1918 Vanderbilt football team.Late in May, 1918, he was called inthe draft, was accepted and was sent toCamp Pike near Little Rock, Arkansas,where he remained for a fewweeks, being made a sergeant, and wassent overseas as a replacement in CompanyE of the Eleventh Infantry, FifthDivision. He was wounded in the armby shrapnel on October 20, 1918, andrefused to go back, and while charginga machine gun on the following daywas seriously wounded again (thiswound has caused more TennesseeAlpha freshmen to get spanked by Joethan anything else. If you want toknow more about it, ask Joe) and wasin a hospital in France for a numberof weeks. He received a personalcitation for bravery for his work onOctober 20 and 21, 1918. His recordfrom Camp Pike through two woundsto a hospital in France is as brief ashis record at Vanderbilt is long—inall about six weeks.Returning to Vanderbilt in 1919,while in the law school Joe workedin the morning in the office of Manierand Crouch, Attorneys at Nashville,Tennessee, for two years and upongraduation became associated with thefirm of Hendrix and Buchanan, attorneysin the Hurt Building at Atlanta,THESCROLLPHI DELTA THETAGeorgia, where he has remained untilthe present.During the fall of 1917, TennesseeBeta at Sewanee, due to war conditions,only returned one or two men,and to help in rushing, Joe went to theMountain with one or two handpickedyounger Tennessee Alpha men and assistedTennessee Beta in its rushingwith such good results that it is stillthe talk of the Mountain. Since hisremoval to Atlanta, Joe has served assecretary of the Atlanta alumni club,chapter adviser to Georgia Delta atGeorgia Tech, president of Epsilonprovince and has been on the editorialboard of THE SCROLL.To the writer's certain knowledge,Joe was the possessor of a certain diamondsolitaire ring which had temporaryresting places in several differentstates, from about the date of hiselection as mayor of Shannon, Mississippi,until the afternoon of March 16,1928, when it came to a permanentresting place on the finger of MissMary Louise Coleman, now Mrs.Joseph Muriel Clark, Jr., formerly ofUniontown, Alabama, a graduate ofthe University of Alabama and anATA.Around August 1, 1929, Joe startedinto the co-ed business with the birthof Isabelle Givhan Clark and while hisallegiance to $ A 0 has in no waybeen abated, he has already begun tostudy the sorority situation in thesouthern colleges.There is no Phi of his generationwho has done more for the fraternityin Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama,and Georgia than Joe and those of uswho know best feel that his elevationto the General Council is a well deservedrecognition of what he hasmeant to $ A 0 in this section and willonly give him a broader field in whichto work for the fraternity and our bestwishes go with him and our congratulationsto the fraternity on itsforesight in electing Joe to this position.[13]