We’re in sunny San DDDiego for Tri Delta’s 60th Biennial Convention! Follow along here with all the latest session-by-session updates. If you missed our live updates of LEADDD yesterday, you can catch up here.
8:30 p.m. – Tri Delta Celebration
Convention is a time for us to celebrate the magic of sisterhood, and we’ve got a lot to celebrate tonight! First up, we’re honoring lifetime membership with the Pearl, Silver and Golden Circle ceremonies, conducted by Executive Board Directors Lenora Oeters, Cincinnati, and Emily Greer, Rhodes.
Congratulations to all those celebrating membership milestones this evening—whether it’s 10, 25 or 50 years!
Next, it’s time to announce the winners of the 2022 Alumnae and Volunteer Awards, and we’ll have all the winners highlighted post-Convention in a special story as part of The Trident online!
One of the biggest awards of Convention is our Ernestine Block Grigsby Award, recognizing an alumna member who, through her loyalty and dedication to Tri Delta, has given outstanding service to her local alumnae chapter.
This year’s 2022 Ernestine Block Grigsby Award winner is Kory Kazimour, who is accepting her award on stage.
“After your college experience is complete, I encourage you to reach out to your local alumni chapter and establish a connection. I think you will be pleased at the friendships and opportunities that present themselves,” she says. “And don’t be surprised when good fortune comes your way, you hear someone say, ‘You are certainly lucky’ I know tonight … I feel like the luckiest person in the room.”
And now Fraternity President Megan Shaw James, Millsaps, is presenting a final, special recognition: the Executive Board Room at Tri Delta’s Executive Office will be named in honor of past Fraternity President Kimberlee Di Fede Sullivan, in recognition for the many years she has spent leading and guiding Tri Delta. This will begin a new tradition at Tri Delta to name the board room in honor of the immediate past Fraternity President!
4:15 p.m. – Let’s Talk Tri Delta with Fraternity President Megan Shaw James, Millsaps
We’re back together for a very special “Let’s Talk Tri Delta” session with Fraternity President Megan Shaw James, Millsaps, who is sharing the State of the Fraternity… Watch for an email coming later on these exciting updates!
2:00 p.m. – Workshops
We’re breaking for two sessions of workshops. Convention is a great opportunity to learn something new to take back with us to the places we live, work and serve. Attendees have the option of choosing from the four informative workshops:
Tri Delta’s History with Kristen Gwinn-Becker, HistoryIT
Brave Relationships with Lindsay Boccardo
DEIAB with Jade Sampson
Tri Delta Tech with Erika Beatty, Executive Office Staff
12:45 p.m. – Let’s Talk with Sara Blakely, Florida State
We’re back with the moment everyone’s been waiting for: Founder & Executive Chairwoman of SPANX—and our Tri Delta sister—Sara Blakely! Tri Delta’s Vice President of Marketing & Communications Mindy Tucker, Southern Methodist, is sitting down with Sara for a conversation.
They talk about how her experience in Tri Delta prepared her for starting her own business, and how her sisters supported her during the early days of SPANX. Sara also shares her mindset on failure, which she attributes to her dad:
“Growing up, my dad used to encourage my brother and me to fail. We’d be sitting at the dinner table and he’d say so what did you fail at this week?” Sara recalls. “He was reframing failure for my brother and me. Instead of failure becoming the outcome, it became not trying. The only time I felt like I was failing was when something scared me and I didn’t do it because I was afraid.”
Sara shares, “What you don’t know can be your greatest asset. A lot of people wait to have all the answers…here’s the deal: if you don’t know how it’s supposed to be done, you’re going to do it differently. And innovation and real change only ever happen when something’s done differently.”
In true Tri Delta fashion, giving back has also been an important part of Sara’s business from the beginning. She shares the importance of philanthropy and how she’s supporting other women business owners through The Red Backpack Fund, which provided $5,000 to 1,000 women business owners during the pandemic.
“My greater mission for SPANX and my life is to elevate and support women,” she says. As more women find success, Sara believes “It’s going to build momentum. They’re going to turn around, lift other women up, too, and pay it forward.”
11:00 a.m. – Circle Degree
Melissa Hall returns to the stage to invite members of the San Diego Alumnae Chapter to conduct Circle Degree for our newest initiates, as we welcome them into lifetime membership in Tri Delta with this third and final degree of Initiation. Alumnae Chapter President Anna Luedtke, Vice President of Administration Laura Weiner and Vice President of Finance Lindsay Nickel are performing the ceremony for us today.
Following tradition, we end Circle Degree by joining together to sing Alpha Theta Phi—a powerful reminder of the special bond we share as sisters.
10:50 a.m. – Announcing Tri Delta’s Digital Archives!
As Ritual concludes and we prepare to celebrate Circle Degree with our new initiates, Tri Delta CEO Karen Hughes White, Georgia, takes the stage for an exciting announcement: the launch of an exciting, multi-year project to fully digitize Tri Delta’s Museum & Archives!
This project has been supported by several generous donors and our partners at HistoryIT. You can start exploring Tri Delta’s digital archives here: tridelta.historyit.com.
9:45 a.m. – Ritual
We had a “wild” time kicking off Convention last night at the San Diego zoo! But we’re ready to begin our first full day by celebrating Tri Delta’s beautiful Ritual this morning. More than 500 sisters from across North America are gathered to welcome six women into our sisterhood. Today we’re initiating:
Jessamyn Clark, Ottawa
DeLinda Forsythe, California/Irvine
Kathleen Huttlinger, Alabama
Natalie Alicia Caballero Inderman, Texas Tech
Micayla Neal, Jacksonville
Lori Spinosa, Ottawa
Our Ritual begins with the processional of Tri Delta leadership, and Ritual Committee Chair Melissa Hall takes the stage to welcome everyone as we begin the ceremony.