RADFORD -- Alumni of RU’s Delta Chi fraternity honored the memory of Jon Cain Capps ’97, one of the chapter’s founding fathers, with a gift to the “Seat of Honor” campaign for the Covington Center for Visual and Performing Arts. A plaque bearing his name has been placed on a seat in the performance hall as a permanent tribute to the legacy he left at Radford (see inset).

Todd Barrish ’98, another Delta Chi founder, says Capps was “an inspiration to us. He was smart and feisty, and he was instrumental in getting us organized.” The RU chapter earned its charter in 1997, less than three years after the founders began their efforts.

Barrish, executive vice president and general manager of Dukas Public Relations in New York City, was at work one day this fall when “out of the blue, someone sent me an e-mail about the seat-naming campaign, and I thought, ‘I wonder if some of the guys ….’ It was the same day that one of the banks crashed,” he says, but he e-mailed a few brothers and immediately received replies of “I’m in,” and those brothers forwarded the message to others. “A thousand dollars is not a small amount to raise, and we did it in about 10 minutes,” says Barrish. “Then people wanted to come down and see the plaque, so a group of us went to Radford to tour the Covington Center and get a picture to send to Jon’s mom.”

All of which speaks volumes about Jon Capps. “He was really close to his mom and to his fraternity brothers,” says Barrish. “He was a proud, strong guy who wanted to leave a legacy on the RU campus -- and he did. Delta Chi has been going strong since 1994.”

To learn about the “Seat of Honor” campaign, e-mail eton@radford.edu or visit http://www.radford.edu/seatofhonor/.