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KAPPA ALPHA PSI FRATERNITY, INC.

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
AUGUST 10-15, 1986
HYATT REGENCY HOTEL

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The Administrator from San Diego becomes 25th Grand Polemarch

FOR RANDALL CLYDE BACON, it has been a long time coming. He had held leadership positions in the fraternity virtually since the day of his initiation some 27 years ago, taking on tasks of increasing significance. Now, at age 47, he has assumed the most important position in the fraternity and has done so with a characteristic drive to get things done quickly, effectively and professionally.

Yet, the 25th Grand Polemarch of the fraternity is not easily defined and is in many ways rather enigmatic. A slender man with broad shoulders, Brother Bacon is an articulate, businesslike man whose speaking pattern is taut, with a measured cadence. Despite the sternness that he exudes, there is an obvious shyness about him that emerges most quickly in casual conversation.

ORGANIZER. For those who knew him will, the pace and tempo of his actions were neither unexpected nor surprising. As one of California's top public administrators, Randall Bacon was already known in his region as a capable and relentless organizer, with a knack for harnessing multimillion dollar budgets. However, even though Brother Bacon has been an intensely active leader on every level of the fraternity since his undergraduate days in the late 1950s, he was more widely known of late for his handshaking appearances at various province meetings.

Nonetheless, he is first and foremost an administrator. As director of San Diego County's department of social services, Bacon administers an agency that employs more than 2,200 employees, operates a budget of $320 million land spreads into some 32 major buildings. As one of the nation's highest-ranking black public officials, Bacon has amassed some 28 years of governmental service in both San Diego and Los Angeles counties.

KAPPA LEADERSHIP. Bacon was born in Youngstown, Ohio, but has lived in California since he was nine. His beginnings in Kappa came with his 1958 initiation into the Upsilon Chapter at California State University at Los Angeles. After his initiation came a metric rise in the fraternity's leadership. He became keeper of records while still a neophyte. The following year, he was elected Grand Strategus at the 49th Grand Chapter in Philadelphia and served in that position under the late Grand Polemarch C. Rodger Wilson. He has worked with every Grand Polemarch since.

As Los Angeles Alumni polemarch, Bacon accomplished one of his strongest legacies. He developed and implemented the Kappa League program in Los Angeles and later successfully pushed for it to become a nationa program. In 1969, at age 30, Bacon was appointed pole march of the Western Province by Grand Polemarch Ernest H. Davenport. He was elected Senior Vice Polemarch in 1974 and served in that position until 1979.

As senior vice pole march, Bacon developed the current procedures for amending the fraternity's constitution and statues. He also drafted the procedures for selecting Grand Chapter sites, the Guy L. Grant Award, revised the method of selecting Elder W. Diggs Award recipients and developed an election code of ethics. 

His community activities include membership in the NAACP, the Urban League, Common Cause, and the Black Americans Political Association of California. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of Souther California and the University of California at San Diego.

Bacon says he doesn't represent a new school of thinking, instead "I represent a very solid foundation in the Fraternity. I was very close to two of our founders (Byron K. Armstrong and Edward G. Irvin), so I have a historical perspective of where Kappa Alpha Psi has come from and what it has been involved in as far as key issues for over 25 years. And I think the brothers look at me as someone who is going to take us out of a knee-jerk political kind of involvement to an old traditional, achievement-oriented involvement for the fraternity.

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Randall C. Bacon

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