Archives: September 1970
Mon Sep 14, 1970
Who Is This Guy
Just in case anyone would like to know, I thought I'd throw this together.
The name is Jeffrey L. Trigg
Born on September 14, 1970, which explains the entry date above, and raised in Washington, IL population about 10,000 just a few minutes from Peoria, IL.
Went to Lincoln Grade School and graduated from Washington Community High School in 1988.
Enjoy classic jazz, classic rock, classical, and contemporary jazz.
Lifelong Chicago Cubs and baseball fan, and college basketball - notably the U of Illinois.
Single, hetero, never married, and no kids. One day I might just meet a woman like this, but I'm not counting on it.
High School Days
In high school most of my activities centered around music. I split time playing the trumpet and tuba in marching band and concert band, and was the trumpet soloist for our marching band during my senior year on the ballad "For Your Eyes Only". I received a perfect score during the Illinois State Solo and Ensemble contest for my solo tuba performance of the Alfred Hitchcock Theme, "Funeral March of a Marionette". Outside of high school I auditioned and was selected to perform with the Central Illinois Youth Symphony. CIYS was a group of some of the best music students from throughout central Illinois. I also lent my voice to our Choir and Madrigals, and learned a few dance steps in our competition winning show choir, The Company. The Company was a unique experience that took us all over the place entertaining and competing, and we were considered a top show choir in Illinois, and won a National competition at Disneyland. I often sang our national anthem before football and basketball games. I also auditioned and participated in the Illinois All-State Chorus. My acting abilities weren't so strong, but I did manage landing speaking roles in our high school plays, "The Stuck Pot" and "Fidler on the Roof". I wrote for our high school newspaper (and learned what censorship was), participated in student council, and was a statistician for our basketball team.
The two summers after my junior and senior years in high school, I worked as a Small Group Leader at Lutheran Outdoor Ministry Center in Oregon, IL. Each week all summer long, a new group of kids came in for various camps including music camp, adventurer camp, explorer camp with an overnight canoe trip, sports camp, drama camp, confirmation camp, and several others. This truly was a great life experience for me, as many of our campers were from inner-city Chicago and had just not experienced nature or the level of attention we were able to give them. I stayed in touch with a few of my campers for several years afterwards.
Going To College
My musical talents allowed me to attend a college I otherwise probably could not have afforded. Apparently, good tuba players are harder to find than star quarterbacks and I was recruited heavily by several top notch music programs including Berklee College of Music in Boston, Belmont University in Nashville, UCLA in Los Angeles, St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and pretty much all the state and private universities with music degrees in Illinois. My first choice was Berklee in Boston, but the costs of that long distance commute was prohibitive, and I settled with Millikin University in Decatur, IL, one of only four schools that offered degrees in Recording Engineering and Music Business at the time. I don't regret that decision to attend Millikin at all.
At Millikin I started out gung ho in the music department, and participated in Concert Band, Marching Band, University Choir, the Blue Revue dance choir, a Vocal Jazz small ensemble, in addition to my music classes. Second semester freshman year, I took a business class required for the Music Business portion of my program and never looked back. A few things probably contributed to me dropping out of a music degree. I was probably a little burnt out after non-stop music activities since I could remember. The prospects for professional tuba players are pretty much limited to teaching, recording studio work for elevator music, professional orchestras and the like. I really enjoyed the business class and decided to put my perfect score on the math portion of the ACT test to good use, and became a business major. I also became involved in a social fraternity that freshman year, and exposed myself to new possibilities.
The Fraternity Experience
I went through our fraternity rush process and met two enterprising fellows that agreed with me in that the fraternities on campus just weren't for us. There were four fraternities on campus that were easily stereotyped as the jocks, the rich-kid preppies, the partiers, and the social misfits. We didn't fit in with any of them. Our exit interviews for the university activities office on why we didn't end up joining a fraternity caught the eye of a few faculty members when one of my friends mentioned we were tempted to start our own fraternity. A week later the three of us were called to meeting and asked to do just that. Start our own fraternity. Delta Sigma Phi had a long history at Millikin University, but had turned into a party fraternity in the early 80s and had been kicked off campus for some stupid stunts. The alumni, including some faculty members, were excited at the prospect of getting their fraternity going again at Millikin, and we were just the guys to do it. So with their help, we recruited some interested guys and I served as our first Vice President for about a month.
After the initial recruitment, it was time for Delta Sigma Phi to vote on our charter and by-laws to become official, and an inner squabble was probably inevitable. There was a faction that wanted us to be distinguished by having a minimum grade point requirement of 3.0, and others that didn't want it that high. The 3.0 people lost, including my two buddies, and they ended up leaving. So I became the President of Delta Sigma Phi as a freshmen and held that office both as a sophomore and junior. My senior year I stepped aside and served as our Treasurer. During my reign I was able to grow our membership and worked with the alumni and university in getting us our own fraternity house.
While the other fraternities had their stereotypes, we became unique and labeled ourselves the un-fraternity because of our diversity. We had the quarterback and the captain of the football team, business majors, science majors, and theater and music majors, which made for an interesting mix. Each year during Greek Week we won the community service award for the most hours of volunteerism, even though we were half the size of the other fraternities. I received the Oustanding Greek Freshman, and Outstanding Greek Sophomore awards in those years during our Greek Week events, and selected for the prestigious Order of Omega honorary fraternity. As a campus leader, I was also asked to participate in the University Corp that helped with high schooler campus visits and ran the freshman orientation camp the week before their college careers started, and served as mentors during their first months in college.
To maintain my music scholarship I continued to participate in the University Choir, and stuck with the Vocal Jazz ensemle because I enjoyed it. Despite all these activities, I still was able to graduate with a respectable B- average and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.
Real Life
I'm tired talking about myself for now and will finish this another day. Stay tuned for my years in hotel management with Marriott, a year stint with a small software company, back to my home town in a sales/management job, and currently as a political activist.
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