BETA-RHO BULLETIN Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity
California State University, Northridge
Volume 38, Issue 2
Spring/Summer 2010
Subways have never been involved with any of Beta-Rho’s alumni events—until now. Six alumni and sever al family members convened at the Metro Red Line Station across the street from Universal Studios near Hollywood for its first “Walk and Rail Across L.A.” event on May 23. Two of the par ticipants, board members Scott Press and Rick Childs, had been pitching this alumni event idea for about two years to the corp. board. Brother Press brought along his wife Sue and Brother Childs showed up with his daughter Megan. Spencer Schmer ling arrived at the same time with his sons Ethan and Chad and parked his car alongside theirs before walking over to the subway station entrance. A few minutes later, Cesar Ayllon, Ricky Trevino and Anthony Pinkett drove up just as the group was about to ride the escalator down to the ticket dispensers. Once the entourage bought their day passes, they hopped on a subway train for a 25-minute commute to Union Station. The cloud-dappled skies resembled the picture-perfect conditions
Spencer Schmerling
Alumni hit the rails to rediscover downtown L.A.
Somewhere below the Hollywood Hills. Riders on the Metro Red Line commuting to Union Station included (from left): Megan Childs, Rick Childs, Scott Press, Sue Press, Anthony Pinkett, Ricky Trevino and Cesar Ayllon.
depicted on (infamously) smogfree L.A. postcards. “We started doing this to celebrate our 50th birthdays,” Sue Press confided. “The first time we did it we took along 20 of our fr iends.” The group followed Courtesy of Brian Megginson
Barry Megginson, 1953-2010. Services were held for Barry J. Megginson (BP 42) on June 18. He passed away on June 7. He is shown with his niece, Grace.
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roughly the same route as the Press Family did to downtown Los Angeles, and then they started with a visit to the historic Olvera Street section. The group ducked into the Avila Adobe for a brief free tour of a building that had stood since 1821. A docent gave a short talk about its construction and the t r a d i t i o n s o b s e r ve d by a relatively wealthy family almost two centuries ago when Spanish ranchers were homesteading Los Angeles. Philippe’s, downtown L.A.’s most famous French dip sandwich destination since 1908, wound up as the lunch stop. The entourage commandeered a private room upstairs before heading over to Chinatown. An hour-long detour in a Chinatown flea mar ket on Broadway segued into another stroll along Olvera Street, but this time the group headed into
the historic El Paseo Inn for drinks, chips and salsa, a restaurant that has entertained locals and tourists since 1930. Back on the Red Line, the group backtracked to Hollywood and Highland. Brothers Ayllon, Pinkett and Trevino split up and returned to the Valley while the others enjoyed watching some of the costumed superhero buskers in front of the Hard Rock Café store before making a beeline to Hooters across the street from the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. After another leisurely hour of socializing, the group split up again as some returned to Universal City. However, this writer and Megan took the subway to Hollywood and Vine and walked over to Amoeba Music where they watched a short concert by Texan country singer Lynda Kay while browsing the CD stacks. As the old Pink Floyd album title read, “Wish You Were Here.”