From "Profiles in Leadership," in the winter 2005-2006 KA Journal:
Like many KAs, Bill Dreyer was introduced to the Order by hometown friends long before he ever stepped onto a university campus. As a high school junior, Dreyer began visiting the campus of William Jewell College from his native Concordia, in west-central Missouri. There, at the behest of a fellow Concordian, Bill was introduced to the KAs. The rest, he says, is history.
"When I went through rush I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to do anything [with another fraternity] unless I got a KA bid," he says now. Luckily, he never had to make good on the threat.
Dreyer proved as studious at William Jewell as he had in high school and would graduate in only three years. That intense scholastic pressure didn’t keep him from being involved in the chapter, however. He served as Number III his final year at school and took many lessons from his time in the house.
While his upbringing may have made Dreyer a perfect fit for KA, he says, "I learned a lot of things about life by just living with the guys and having a housemother who was watching over us." He credits KA for helping him learn "how to deal with people…as a subordinate, as a boss, a father and as a husband."
Nearing graduation, Dreyer was quickly recruited by Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. He progressed through assignments in Missouri, Texas and Georgia and was named President of the company’s Kansas Division in 1985. By 1988 Dreyer had become Group President of Southwestern Bell Corporation and was responsible for overseeing all of SBC’s international subsidiaries and several national branches as well. Dreyer would retire as Executive Vice President of SBC.
While he stayed in touch with his KA buddies and tried to apply the Order’s values to his daily life, Dreyer says his involvement in KA outside of his own chapter had been minimal since graduation. But in the early 1990’s J. David Carico of the Kappa Alpha Order Educational Foundation recruited Dreyer as a volunteer leader and eventually as a member of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Dreyer would be elected to the Order’s Executive Council in 2003.
Looking back on his years of volunteer experience, Bill Dreyer sees a role for KA in the lives of future young men. "What we’re out to do is make these young men gentlemen who are successful in all phases of their lives. And I think the biggest challenge is to do that in the face of changing values in our society. It’s difficult to be a gentleman today."
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