Bob McKinless ’48

No survey of our alumni and no account of our history is complete without meeting Bob McKinless ’48 O-612. With over half a century of service to the chapter, Bob is one of the most active, generous, and devoted Omicrons of all time. In 2018 he was inducted into the Order of Merit, the highest recognition for dedicated alumni service in Lambda Chi Alpha, only the third Cornellian and second Omicron ever to ascend to that circle.

Like many in his generation, Bob’s education was interrupted when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. Fortunately for us, it meant he was sent to Cornell for training, whereupon fellow jarhead Tal Williams ’47 recruited him for the reorganizing chapter. After graduating in 1948, he married his childhood sweetheart, Nancy Faus. His career took him to three continents before they settled in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., where they raised four children.

Half Century of Service

When his children were grown, Bob’s interest in Cornell was rekindled— though not at first with the chapter. To put it most charitably, the OAA and ISWZA in those days had a small footprint. They rarely if ever interacted with undergraduate brothers, and the president and treasurer had a tendency to make decisions without the input of the board. This system had functioned well enough in the postwar years, but the house was aging, the brotherhood changing, and the campus climate becoming inhospitable, even hostile, to fraternities.

In 1966, while chaperoning high school students on a Cornell Club of Washington-sponsored campus visit, Bob ran into another parent, Ed Miller, father of Howard Miller ’67, who was dropping by Edgemoor. Bob had not originally planned to go, but agreed to a short visit, which became a long visit after meeting several undergraduates including Ralph Wilhelm ’67, then the High Alpha. Bob returned for Homecoming where he was elected to the alumni board, returned to join Ernst Fischer ’10 and alumni president Duke Schneider ’58 at the Atlantic Conclave the following spring, and soon led efforts to improve the organization.

Alumni-undergraduate interaction at the time was weak, and Bob saw only missed opportunities. He did not walk into meetings dictating a master plan for reform, though; that was not in his down-to-earth nature. Rather, Bob accomplished his goals by recruiting one brother at a time, by establishing one relationship at a time. He is a master of making new friends, then making them friends of one another. The board added a spring meeting for casual discussion, without the distractions of Homecoming; he pushed for younger alumni to volunteer; he demonstrated that alumni should not just meet, but befriend their litle brothers. The new, reinvigorated alumni association and strong alumni-undergraduate relationships he fostered helped the chapter weather the tumultuous early 1970s, and financial difficulties in the following decade.

Multifaceted Involvement

Bob has also worked to the utmost over the decades to bring worthy men into the fraternity through his involvement with the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network (CAAAN). As an applicant interviewer and regional director for CAAAN over 35 years, Bob was quick to identify and refer quality candidates, also referring the sons and grandsons of his friends, and students he met through his involvement with the Cornell-in-Washington program and the Cornell Club of Washington— just two other of his numerous interests. Music is his great love, one he shared with his late wife, Nancy, who passed away in 2015. He sings with the award-winning choral group the Washington Men’s Camerata, with whom he has performed at the Kennedy Center. With that group he also served as the first curator of what is now the National Library of Men’s Choral Music. He is also active with the Glee Club alumni and with his church choir, and is regularly called upon to lead the alma mater at alumni events.

He is at least equally famous for his avid interest in the outdoors and in cycling, which he took up in the 1980s. He was the originator of the Cornell Club of Washington’s semi-annual Old Rag Hike and Potomac Paddle events— retiring from leading these at his 80th birthday party, in 2007— and has hiked many mountains and completed many road trips with brothers decades his junior, such as the RAGBRAI ride across Iowa with Tim Rogan ’81, or the Natchez Trace with Mike Buckler ’96. In 2014 he fulfilled a dream of a three-generation ride with his son and grandson, biking about 300 miles to raise funds for literacy, as featured in The Cross & Crescent. He checked off another on his ever-growing bucket list in 2018, the Kettle Valley Rail Trail in British Columbia, a railroad which his wife's grandfather had helped to build.

Recognitions

Bob was awarded the Frank H.T. Rhodes Exemplary Alumni Service award in 2003, Cornell University’s highest honor for alumni, and he is a lifetime member of the Cornell Council. Other organizations, it seems have run out of awards to give him, and have started naming awards after him. The Cornell Club of Washington created the Esther Bondareff Award to recognize his contributions to them, and recently created the McKinless Scholarship in his honor, to benefit a student who is actively involved in volunteer community service at Cornell. And for the chapter’s part, the Omicron Award— created in 1984 to honor his contributions— was renamed in 2015 as the McKinless Award, after our truest exemplar of lifetime service to the fraternity.