 |
Loyalty and Friendship Span Decades
Maurice "Mo" O'Callaghan, Oregon ‘47, and Malcolm "Mac" Epley, Oregon ‘47, both Phi Psi brothers, graduated from the University of Oregon in 1950. In high school, Mo and his older brother Jerry O'Callaghan, Oregon ‘40, had worked for Mac's dad, writing a column for the Long Beach Telegram.
Mo and Mac were good friends throughout college.
Mac recalls, "Communications weren't what they are today. My girlfriend lived in the Alpha Phi house across the street. There weren't enough telephones and we couldn't maintain communications very well. I told Mo of my problem, and he went to a salvage store and bought some old army field phones from the war. We went out in the backyard and tied the phone wire to a baseball. One of the brothers threw the ball up over the trees, across the power lines and onto the Alpha Phi front lawn. They hooked the phone in upstairs at the house. She and I were the only couple at the time, but then suddenly there were a dozen couples! Since then we've lost our phone, but she's been the light of my life for 58 years now."
Mo and Mac vowed to keep in touch, but their post-graduate paths made it seem perhaps only wishful thinking...
Mo went back to raising cattle on his parents' remote ranch in northeast California - so rural an area that "Surprise Valley" is some 200 miles from the nearest traffic light. Mac, meanwhile, followed in his father's footsteps. Married to his Alpha Phi sweetheart, he went to work as a newspaperman in his hometown of Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Yet in the years that would follow, the O'Callaghan and Epley families' lives would remain intertwined.
When Mac's dad retired, he and his wife "somehow landed at Surprise Valley," according to the younger Epley. They purchased a portion of the ranch property from Mo and Jerry's parents. So amidst their varied career and family pursuits, the O'Callaghans were reconnected with the Epleys once more.
Years later, following his parents' deaths, Mac's family inherited the property. "We also inherited Uncle Mo!" Brother Epley laughs. "He still lived in one of the guest houses on the ranch. Jerry's kids and my kids grew awfully fond of him."
In 2002, Maurice O'Callaghan died of Alzheimer's disease. He bequeathed half of his estate to the children of his lifelong friend, Malcolm Epley, and the other half to his brother Jerry's children. But without Mo to help manage the ranch, barn, pasture and guest houses the Epleys made the decision to sell their interest in the property.
Last year, along with their children, Malcolm Epley and Jerry O'Callaghan established a scholarship in memory of Mo. The annual award has been made possible through a named scholarship fund and is available to Oregon Alpha underclassmen based on their record of academic excellence, outstanding character and commitment to public service. Contributions to the scholarship fund are welcome. Gifts may be made to the Phi Kappa Psi Foundation and designated to the Maurice O'Callaghan Memorial Scholarship Fund. For more information, contact Ben Nicol at the Foundation offices.
In addition to paying tribute to their brother, Mac Epley and Jerry O'Callaghan believe the scholarship will help reinvigorate fraternal living at the Phi Psi house and create a renaissance of interest in their beloved Oregon Alpha Chapter.
|
|
 |
