ALUMNI SIGS WILL HEAR THE LATEST ON THE CAMPAIGN TO CATCH THE “BASLINE KILLER”

Sgt. Amy O’Connell of the Phoenix Police Department will give us an
update on the campaign as well as discuss other major issues that
currently effect one of the largest police departments in the country
when she speaks at the September meeting of the Phoenix Sigma Chi
Alumni Chapter.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 13 at the Phoenix
City Grille restaurant located at 5816 N. 16th Street (southwest
corner with Bethany Home Rd.) in Phoenix. Cocktails at 6:00pm, dinner
at 6:30 and our speaker at 7:00.

“You’ll Find It Here”

*****Future Alumni Chapter Programs********************************

October 1 – Epsilon Upsilon Chapter (ASU) Parents Club Golf
Tournament & Silent Auction at the Pointe at South
Mountain. Brothers we need your support, if you would like to play
in the tournament and/or donate items for auction please contact
Marshall Christy (Mob. – 602-909-4209) as soon as possible

October 11 – Fr. Carl Carlozzi, Chaplain for the Phoenix Fire Department

November 8 – Brother Steve Hart, ASU ’72, General Manager of the JW
Marriott Desert Ridge Resort &Spa

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Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006

THE VALLEY’S NEW LIGHT RAIL SYSTEM WILL BE THE PROGRAM AT THIS
MONTH’S SIG ALUMNI MEETING

Karla Navarrete, Communications Coordinator for Valley Metro will
cover the general plan, current progress, project oversight,
transit-oriented development, station design and much more when she
speaks at the August meeting of the Phoenix Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter.

The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 9 at the Phoenix City
Grille restaurant located at 5816 N. 16th Street (southwest corner
with Bethany Home Rd.) in Phoenix. Cocktails at 6:00pm, dinner at
6:30 and our speaker at 7:00.

“You’ll Find Here”

*****Future Alumni Chapter Programs*************************

October 11 – Fr. Carl Carlozzi, Chaplain for the Phoenix Fire Department

November 8 – Brother Steve Hart, ASU 1972,
General Manager of the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa

******************************************************************************

Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006

SIGS WILL LEARN ABOUT THE $3 BILLION OF REDEVELOPMENT IN DOWNTOWN
PHOENIX OVER THE NEXT 3 YEARS

Rob Edwards, Director of Economic Development for the Downtown
Phoenix Partnership (www.CopperSquare.com) will give details on the
projects, large and small, that will reshape Copper Square by 2009:
two university campuses for a combined total of 15,000 students, a
new convention center, three new hotels, six light rail stations, a
biomedical campus, a warehouse entertainment district, and a $900
million mixed-use retail development when he speaks at the July
meeting of the Phoenix Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter.

The meeting is set for Wednesday, July 12 at the Phoenix City Grille
restaurant located at 5816 N. 16th Street (southwest corner with
Bethany Home Rd.) in Phoenix. Cocktails at 6:00pm, dinner at 6:30 and
our speaker at 7:00.

“You’ll Find It Here”

***** Future Alumni Chapter Programs*****

August 9 – Ms. Marty Macurak, Communications Manager for Valley
Metro-Regional Public Transportation will discuss the general plan
and the current update of the valley’s light rail system

*****************************************************

Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006

THE SIG CHAPTER AT THE UofA IS COMING BACK

Brother Joe Beers, past Grand Praetor, past Chapter Advisor to
Epsilon Upsilon, past Consul of the Phoenix Alumni Chapter, member of
the Leadership Training Faculty and member of the Beta Phi Chapter
Hall of Honor will discuss the campaign to re-establish Beta Phi
Chapter including the chapter house site, the proposed design and
plans of the new house, university relationship, recruitment and much
more when he speaks at the June meeting of the Phoenix Sigma Chi
Alumni Chapter.

The meeting is set for Wednesday, June 14 at the Phoenix City Grille
Restaurant located at 5816 N. 16th Street (southwest corner with
Bethany Home Rd.) in Phoenix. Cocktails at 6:00pm, dinner at 6:30 and
our speaker at 7:00.

“You’ll Find It Here”

*****FUTURE ALUMNI CHAPTER PROGRAMS***************************************

July 12 – Rob Edwards, Director of Economic Development for the
Downtown Phoenix Partnership will discuss “Copper Square” and the $3
Billion worth of new development planned

*******************************************************************************************

Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006

THE MAJORITY LEADER OF THE ARIZONA HOUSE TO ADDRESS SIS

The Honorable Stephen Tully, Majority Leader of the Arizona House of
Representatives from District 11 will discuss the current issues
affecting the State and also the Legislature’s relationship with
Governor Napolitano when he speaks at the May meeting of the Phoenix
Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter.

The meeting is set for Wednesday, May 10 at the Phoenix City Grill
Restaurant located at 5816 N. 16th Street (southwest corner with
Bethany Home Rd.) in Phoenix. Cocktails at 6:00pm, dinner at 6:30 and
our speaker at 7:00.

“You’ll Find It Here”

***************FUTURE ALUMNI CHAPTER SPEAKERS************************

June 14 – Brother Joe Beers on re-establishing Beta Phi Chapter at
The University of Arizona

*********************************************************************

Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006

Blind devotion to Suns, love and life

Dan Bickley
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 19, 2006 12:00 AM

Bill Gibney looks you straight in the eye. It’s a nifty trick for
someone who has been blind for 51 years.

Oh, but he doesn’t see it that way. And either way, he’s a little
busy at the moment, thank you.

He’s standing at his seat in the US Airways Center, clapping with the
rest of the crowd. He’s got Al McCoy coming through an earphone in
his right ear. He’s got his wife in the other ear, and she’s taking
color commentary to a new level.

“Honey, you should see the cleavage on the dancers,” Cheryl Parker begins.

Sit back. You haven’t heard anything yet.

“As far as I’m concerned, I can still see because I can still
visualize things,” Gibney said. “Most blind people don’t do that.”

Gibney, 59, is a die-hard Suns fan. He has a room dedicated to the
team at his beautiful Phoenix home. He has a beautiful wife, a former
television news anchor. He has everything a man could want, and it’s
a shame he can’t see any of it.

Gibney has been legally blind since age 8 and completely blind since
college. He suffers from Sticklers syndrome, a hereditary disease
that affects the retinas and which afflicted three other members of
his immediate family.

His sister, father and uncle all regained their vision after surgery,
but young Bill’s lights went out and never came back on.

“It happened at such a young age that it just wasn’t a big deal,”
Gibney said. “Besides, I’ve always had a lot of drive. I’ve always
been real active. You either sit around feeling sorry for yourself or
you go on. I went on.”

That’s an understatement. Today, Gibney works full time as a sole
practitioner of law (estate planning). He loves to ski, play
blackjack and go on European vacations. He nearly died in a Greek
subway last year, and is currently on his sixth guide dog, Alibi.

The last one was so well traveled that it had its own passport.

“He’ll tell people things like, ‘I saw the Cardinals game last
night,’ ” Cheryl said. “They’re like, ‘No, you didn’t. You didn’t see
anything.’ ”

Oh, how wrong they are.

“First of all, I think I did see it because I know sports so well,”
Gibney said. “I understand the game so well that I do visualize them.
And, besides, what am I supposed to say? That I heard the Cardinals
game last night? That just doesn’t sound right.”

Whatever the hardship, Gibney won’t go down quietly. Even if he knew
pity, he wouldn’t have the time.

He graduated from the University of Arizona in 1969. He graduated
from law school in 1972. He is a season-ticket holder for the Suns.
He opens the front door all by himself.

And then there are the rare times when a blind man finds it necessary
to get behind the wheel of an automobile.

“He’s driven a few times,” Cheryl said.

A love scene:

“I don’t know if this is fit for publication, but we got married in
Kauai (in 1990),” Cheryl said. “At our rehearsal dinner the night
before, I drank a little too much. We were staying 30 miles away. As
we were leaving, I said, ‘I don’t think I should be driving. You drive.’ ”

Naturally daring and equally rebellious, Gibney was happy to oblige.

“I’m telling him where to go, helping him along. We get a mile out of
town and I turn around,” Cheryl continued. “There was a cop following
us. We’re on these winding roads, and even though I wasn’t really
drunk, we couldn’t just stop and switch drivers. What am I going to
do, drag a blind guy out of the driver’s seat?”

Bill: “What we should’ve done is stop and pretended that I was blind drunk.”

Somehow, the two got back without any legal incident. They were
married the next day.

Bill: “We really believe if you’re drinking, you shouldn’t be driving.”

Those who know Gibney marvel at his attitude, his zest for living.
Other than the guide dog and a caller ID service that speaks the
incoming numbers, he makes few concessions to blindness.

“He’s a really interesting, engaging, talented guy,” said a neighbor,
Bob Casselman. “The first Suns game we ever went to together, he was
telling me what was going on.”

Like everything else, it comes with practice.

Gibney lost his sight at a cruel age, when he was just a boy. A phone
call came from the teacher. A concerned mother asked him to read a
passage from Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Then asked him to read the
clock on the wall.

There was nothing to see and nothing to say.

“My retinas would fall out of place, so I couldn’t see,” Gibney said.
“I was a dumb little kid, so I thought I just had dirt in my eyes.
I’d go over, splash water in my eyes, and when I’d bend over, the
retinas would fall back in place. I’d stand up and I could see for a
little while. But obviously I had a big problem.”

The next morning, Bill was in the doctor’s office, beginning his long
and fruitless medical quest.

Over the next six years, Gibney underwent 10 surgeries. Along the
way, he developed an indomitable spirit that would define the rest of his life.

“When I went to the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind (in
Tucson), we were all kind of helpless there,” Gibney said. “It was
really pitiful. They really held you back. They had this great big
pool at the school, and I was the only one that could swim. That’s
when I noticed, ‘I don’t belong here.’ ”

Gibney’s parents recognized it, too. They formed the Scottsdale
Foundation for Blind Children, which eventually became the Foundation
for Blind Children in Phoenix, now the largest blind children’s
agency in the United States.

Bill’s focus became assimilation into the sighted world, and by the
time Gibney reached sixth grade, he became the first blind child in
the United States to return to a public school.

With extremely limited sight, Gibney threw himself into the action.

If receivers clapped their hands downfield, Gibney could be your
quarterback. He’d place a white rag, which was bright enough for him
to make out, over a bar and attempt a high jump. In the eighth grade,
he played center on an organized football team.

When he could see the vague outline of a backboard, he would shoot
toward the middle and hope.

He’d easily risk embarrassment for the love of sport, the love of competition.

“The advantage I had over someone born blind is that they can’t
visualize,” Gibney said. “You can’t put a building in their hands. Or
a tree. Or colors. I knew what colors looked like. That helped me be normal.”

Later in life, Gibney co-founded the National Beep Baseball
Association. Beep ball is softball with a twist: the
16-inch-circumference ball has a beeper in it.

“As a kid, I just had to push my way in,” Gibney said. “And I had to
let them know it was OK. I taught them to laugh about my blindness. I
made jokes about my blindness.

“I didn’t want to be treated like this weirdo, like a monkey in the
zoo. Even today, I don’t want to be known as a blind attorney. I’m an
attorney, and some people don’t know I’m blind. And that’s the way I want it.”

Another love story:

Cheryl met Bill during an on-camera interview. As an anchor for
Channel 12, she was known for her ability to make subjects weep. But
she had never interviewed anyone like Gibney.

“I fell in love with him that night,” Parker said.

Apparently, it happened all the time.

“Through the years, I’ve met a couple dozen of his girlfriends,”
Parker said. “They’re all gorgeous.”

Gibney admits he has had a little help in this department.

“I’ve had great guide dogs,” he said. “And they’re all chick magnets.”

Cheryl laughs. “Can’t you tell that we’re still madly in love?” she says.

Of course, recklessness has its perils, and Gibney has the bumps and
bruises to prove it.

Bill is so good at appearing not blind that, early in their
relationship, his wife often walked him into signposts and walls. And
to this day, the dishwasher still gets him every time.

But nothing was like the nasty spill he took getting off a subway in
Greece last fall, when he fell between the space separating the
platform and the train.

“The train goes automatically every seven seconds,” Cheryl said. “I
was sure that he was gone.”

Three men jumped off the train and saved him from certain death.

“Truth is, we were arguing over where we needed to get off, and we
weren’t paying attention,” Gibney says. “And what’s really maddening
is, I was right.”

Besides, for this guy, life is all about risk and reward. And for
Gibney, anything beats the sedentary life, the death sentence of
sitting in a chair all day. Unless, of course, there’s a really big
game on television.

CITY OF PHOENIX MAYOR TO ADDRESS SIGMA CHI ALUMNI

Phil Gordon, Mayor of the City of Phoenix will address the current
issues concerning the nation’s 5th largest city when he speaks at the
April meeting of the Phoenix Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter.

The meeting is set for Wednesday, April 12 at the Phoenix City Grill
Restaurant located at 5816 N. 16th Street (southwest corner with
Bethany Home Rd.) in Phoenix. Cocktails at 6:00pm, dinner at 6:30 and
our speaker at 7:00.

“You’ll Find It Here”

***********FUTURE ALUMNI CHAPTER SPEAKERS******************

May 10 – The Honorable Stephen Tully, Majority Leader of the Arizona
House of Representatives from District 11

***********************************************************

Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006

********SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER UPDATE*********

*************PROGRAM CHANGE********************

Brothers:

We have a program change for this Wednesday’s Alumni Chapter Meeting.

The Chapter is fortunate in having Brother Alan Ecker, Epsilon
Upsilon ’91, Legislative Liaison and Public Information Officer for
the Arizona Department of Administration as our speaker. Please come
join us and hear Alan’s update of what could be a very contentious
state legislative session.

Location:

Phoenix City Grill Restaurant
5816 N. 16th Street, Phoenix

Cocktails at 6:00pm, Dinner at 6:30 and our speaker at 7:00

SIG ALUMNI WILL SEE “HOPE FOR THE FUTURE”

The meeting program will include the video “Hope For The Future”,
produced by two Sigma Chis and outlining the founders and what Sigma
Chi stands for with special meaning for all Brothers, will be shown
at the March meeting of the Phoenix Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter.

The meeting is set for Wednesday, March 8 at the Phoenix City Grill
Restaurant located at 5816 N. Street (southwest corner with Bethany
Home Rd.) in Phoenix. Cocktails at 6:00pm, dinner at 6:30 and our
program at 7:00.

*******UPCOMING ALUMNI CHAPTER PROGRAMS********

April 12 – Phil Gordon, Mayor of the City of Phoenix will speak.

May 10 – Alumni Chapter Ritualistic Meeting is planned

Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006

THE FOURTH ANNUAL SIGMA CHI ALUMNI SWEETHEART VALENTINE PARTY IS
PLANNED FOR WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2006

Brother Bill Gibney and his wife Cheryl Parker are again hosting our
February Sweetheart Party at their lovely north Phoenix home.

This will be a Valentine’s Day Party for Brothers and their sweethearts.

Here are the details:

DATE: Wednesday, February 8, 6:00 to 9:00pm (This takes the place of
our regular monthly Alumni Chapter meeting)

LOCATION: Bill and Cheryl’s home at 4122 E. Mission Lane in Phoenix

DINNER: Catered gourmet food and will include beer and wine

COST: $75.00 per couple. Please send your check and RSVP to: Phoenix
Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter, P.O. Box 62291, Phoenix, AZ 85082-2291 by
Friday February 3

ATTIRE: Cocktail

Bill and Cheryl’s home is beautiful, next to the Phoenix Mountain
Preserve and is an ideal location for this affair

************************************************************

Celebrating Our Centennial

THE PHOENIX SIGMA CHI ALUMNI CHAPTER

1906 – 2006