1956: The 47th Convention – 50-Year Pins
The Greenbrier Hotel, where Beatrice Locke Hogan (Oregon, 1912) was named National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) chairman, was also the site of Gamma Phi Beta’s 47th Convention held July 2-7, 1956. It was the first at which a professional parliamentarian was present at all sessions. A Golden Crescent Award pin was authorized as an appropriate symbol for those members initiated for 50 or more years. Two committees were organized: one to study the financial structure of the Sorority and another to study the relocation of the Central Office outside the Chicago metropolitan area.
Beatrice Locke Hogan served as NPC chairman until 1957. Among her other, more serious duties within NPC, she enjoyed the honor and the excitement of serving as a judge at the 1957 Miss America Pageant. In passing the wisdom she’d accumulated over the years to the ladies of Gamma Phi Beta, she encouraged them to read the NPC Creed and “pledge anew” the principles of scholarship, wholesomeness and fine social standards for which they stood. “To us fraternity life is not the enjoyment of special privileges,” she reminded them, “but an opportunity to prepare for wide and wise human service.”
Golden Crescent Award and pin.