"Bhe CRESCENT of Gamma Phi Beta FEBRUARY CONTENTS Turner Falls, Oklahoma Frontispiece Eli�Artist and Teacher 3 We Present the Reports of National Officers and Chair men 6 National Panhehenic Meeting at Denver 9 i Scholarship Report for the Second Semester, 1928-29. 11 i Concerning Our Freshmen Contributions 13 Installation of Alpha Omicron Chapter at North Dakota State College 20 ffi International Historian 26 ffi LMJ} International Rushing Chairman 27 (L^L^ Two Gamma Phi Beta Celebrities .... 29 Canada's First Woman Pilot 30 SMf Poems 32 �jp Camp for Underprivileged Children 36 Editorials 37 Announcements 39 Chapter Letters 41 (^ij^) Alumnas Chapters 70 (fS^^ Directory 97 CHARLOTTE ROBERTSON WHITE (Mrs. L. A.) Executive Secretary Gamma Phi Beta Central Office 55 East Washington Street Chicago, Ilhnois THE CRESCENT is published regularly the 15th of Sep tember, 1st of December, 15th of February, and 1st of May, by George Banta, Official Printer, 450-454 Ahnaip Street, Menasha, Wis. Entered as second-class matter October 1, 1910, at the post office at Menasha, Wis., under the act of March 3, 1879. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103 Act of October 8, 1917, authorised, July 18, 1918. Subscription price per year, One Dollar and a Half, payable in advance. Forty Cents ($.40) per copy. i Address all material for publication to the Editor. i Turner Falls, Oklahoma A two toned woodblock by Edith Mahier THE CRESCENT LINDSEY BARBEE, Editor 1410 Vine Street, Denver, Colorado Vol. 30 FEBRUARY, 1930 No. 1 6/i�Artist and Teacher Edith Mahier, Psi Chapter, who is a well-known artist and head of the Mural Art Department of the University of Oklahoma, designed The Crescent's beautiful new cover. Below is an article written about Miss Mahier by feanne d'Ucel for "The Sooner Magazine." many an early immigrant Eli first arrived in Oklahoma be tween two days�in her case though it was by invitation� LIKE^ tired and hungry, having missed dinner at Purcell. She was a tall slip of a girl, fresh from Louisiana and Sophie New comb her foster mother, and she had seen little of the world, that was to come later. But she was tremulous over her big adventure, having no doubt been warned by her parents and all her friends about the wild country she was coming to, and perhaps being a trifle dis appointed when it proved as tame as New Orleans. Of artistic baggage she had little outside of native talent and sound training, but the old timers remember a picture of a pot of gold about which she liked to lecture to anyone willing to listen. At first she had no time for creative work; all her energy was con centrated on her teaching. And what a teacher she was to develop! From the very beginning she had the happy faculty of winning the confidence of bewildered freshmen searching for expression in a new medium, winning the respect of haughty sophomores and clubwomen, winning the love and admiration of generations of graduates. None could withstand her infectious enthusiasm, while her patience and skill in helping to unfold the latent possibilities of students have opened to many new and thrilling vistas. 4 The Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta The Witchfoot. A Woodblock done by Miss Mahier For nearly twelve years now she has been the center and pivot around which the art school has resolved; others have come to aid in the work of teaching, nine other good teachers all told; but Eli has remained the institution that she is. At all hours she is called upon to help in laying out a newspaper ad, straightening a crooked perspective, balancing a composition or explaining HamlDridge's "Dynamic Symmetry." She has always been available and her innate good nature has often been badly abused while the demands on her time have been enormous. It is a fact that, like a physician, she has even been called out of bed to give a consultation on some cantankerous painting that insisted on going astray. Guide, friend, mother, nurse and confidante, Eli has been all these to generations of students. Then teaching aid came and she was able to save a little time for her own, she began her career as a creative artist. Memories of her southern childhood, of black mammies, hoary trees, mysterious swamps crept into her work. In her landscapes, where blues and yellows abound giving a dream-like quality, goblins peek from behind elfin branches that writhe in strange agonies, snakes glisten, vines seem ready to coil, nymphs dance in the glades. For Eli sees the world with the eyes of a dreamer, of a Peter Pan; her fancy colors the prose of life, her brush sings in strange melodies. This was her first manner and it was Rackamesque. The Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta S Later she developed a taste for travel; she became acquainted with New York and her art schools; then she discovered France, Italy, and revelled in them for a year; she saw the Alps, the Pyrenees, Pied mont; she absorbed a world of history. Her tall fantasy was severely disciplined in Florence. After her return to America a hard struggle developed in her be tween the classicism she had absorbed in Italy and the incurably ro mantic part of her own self. Pulled in turn by these irreconcilable forces, she hesitated for a time; but a happy, balanced blending of the two strains is apparent in her latest work. Celestial mountains fill her landscapes; giants of the earth, cliffs, men and gods in a world a- forming grope and search for the divine. There is still the dream, but the dream is both more subtle and more powerful, while her colors more varied and vigorous blend with the forms in vibrant harmonies. .'^nd still she is the teacher, and she has been busy of late what with keeping Olinka Hardy on the straight artistic path in mural decoration, preventing Tsa-to-ke, the Kiowa, from going white, and steering Leonard Good to more virile things than dancing scarves. Such is Professor Edith Mahier, the artistic institution, beloved of all, known to all as Eli. ^ > // our FRESHMEN will read this number of the < ( magazine carefully they will learn much about the ) ( work of the national officers. attainment of alumnce, \ > events of an installation and, in addition, they will < \ read what some of their own number have written. ) We Present the Reports of National Officers and Chairmen Vice-President and Alumna Secretary have been two alumna chapters formed and two more associations listed. The chapters are at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and THEREDallas, Texas; the two associations are at Omaha, Nebraska, and Salt Lake City, Utah. In view of the new directory, all college chapters and province offi cers have been urged to check up on addresses through alumnae let ters. Due appreciation is extended to province officers for splendid co-operation, since theirs is the real contact and to them belongs the credit for real organization of groups. At the request of Wichita Association, it is the hope of the secretary to have in the near future a handbook of hints for newly organized chapters and associations. A definite program of organization, and various suggestions for activities during the year would make for a sound foundation in these new groups. All alumnae chapters and associations are asked for suggestions for such a handbook. LaVerne Bronaugh Stover The Treasurer's Report each member of the Grand Council is responsible for her phase of the sorority work, I will touch only on finances. SINCEThe first work after convention was to close up the books for the two years preceding August 1, 1929, and to open new ones for another two years, which consumed the working hours of two weeks. With the beginning of the year in September, letters were written to each treasurer reminding her of her various responsibilities and urging promptness in making collections, that all accounts might be in by January 10. The results are that responses improved greatly over preceding years but leave a little still to be desired along the same line another year. Since dues should reach the treasurer by January 1, they are paid from January to the next December 31, no matter when the dues are sent in which means the member may get fewer than four Crescents The Crescent of Gamma Phi Beta 7 and is not entitled to vote on any local or international question, while her dues remain unpaid. The treasurer wishes to commend the following groups for paying dues so promptly that the checks were through Central Office and recorded in the books before January IS: Alpha Mu, Boston, Balti more, Beta, Epsilon, Alpha Nu, Chicago, Cleveland, Ann Arbor, Springfield, Omicron, Sigma, Phi, Alpha Theta, Kansas City, Cham paign-Urbana, Nashville, Lawrence, Wichita, Gamma, Kappa, Rho, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Des Moines, Ames, Theta, Pi, Psi, Denver, Tulsa, Lincoln, Salt Lake City, Nu, Xi, Alpha Lambda, Portland, Alpha Epsilon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Reno, and Fort Collins. Convention required that all treasurers be bonded through the grand treasurer. One year's experience with this plan has convinced the bonding company and the treasurer that the correspondence necessary is too great for both and that it will be much more prac ticable for each Greek letter and each corporation treasurer to be bonded in her own chapter town. Elections will occur soon and all new treasurers should be bonded bejore taking office. One large task of the last three years has been the building of a Crescent Reserve to furnish Crescents to those who have paid for five year and life subscriptions.