Gamma Beta History
It was during the summer of 1983 that Dr. Wendell P. Holmes, Jr., first called a meeting at his home in Jacksonville, Florida, inviting community leaders and professionals to explore the possibility of establishing a boulé in Jacksonville. One year later, on June 9, 1984, Gamma Beta Boulé was chartered as the seventy-first member boulé of Sigma Pi Phi. Grand Grammateus Butler Henderson from New York City presided over the initiation, assisted by Archons T. Winston Cole and Roger P. Fair of Beta Xi Boulé and others. Fifteen Archons were inducted, including a bank president, dentists and lawyers, a college president, a superintendent of schools, president of an insurance company, and an investment broker with Merrill Lynch. During his first year as founding Sire Archon, Holmes planned the first High Potential Youth Recognition Banquet, which is now an eighteen-year Gamma Beta tradition that has honored thousands of youth and contributed financially to the education of many deserving students. The award honors African American students who have scored in at least the ninetieth percentile in either the math or reading Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The 2003 banquet recognized more than 400 students from more than a dozen colleges, raising well over $1,000,000 in scholarship aid.