By David L. Brown

Thought I’d share a bit of history with the members of the New Mexico Chapter. I was looking through some family records and happened to find the certificate of membership in Sigma Delta Chi for my father, Harry E. Brown. As I’m sure you all know, SDX later became the Society of Professional Journalists. Here’s a scan of the certificate:

The certificate is not dated, but would have been from about 1936 when he was a senior at Purdue University. He was elected to membership as editor of the university’s agricultural magazine. He went on to become an entomologist, not a journalist, and was a professor at the University of Missouri. But he kept his SDX membership for many years, and thus I grew up in a household where The Quill was a regular feature. May have something to do with my own career choice, eh? My father was still a member when I joined in 1961, so between us we have about 73 years of continuous membership in SDX/SPJ. His membership number, as you can see, was 8338. Mine is 32039, so there were apparently about 23,700 members admitted between us over a 25 year span.

Note that the document identifies SDX as a “Fraternity,” and indeed it was a male-only organization for many years, even through the time when I joined. A lot of water under the bridge since then. Hope you enjoyed this little tidbit of personal history.