Knight Commanders

Howard Palmer Locke

22nd Knight Commander

Alpha Nu–The George Washington University, 1918

Howard P. Locke is considered by many to be the founder of modern Kappa Alpha, and he was credited with bringing Kappa Alpha into the fraternity mainstream after the end of World War II. He was born in Charleston , South Carolina , in 1899 and initiated by Alpha Nu Chapter on November 2, 1918. His sixty-four years of dedication to the Order included filling nearly every elected and appointed post. He served as Wood Province Commander from 1937 to 1946 and as a member of the National Reactivation Committee after World War II. In 1946 he was elected as a councilor and as president of the Fraternity Housing Corporation. He placed great emphasis on the establishment of the FHC and the Kappa Alpha Scholarship Fund, which is designed, and the development of the Regional Advisor System and the National Officers’ Training School (which is now known as the National Leadership Institute). He also participated in revision of the Kappa Alpha Laws from the 1940s into the 1970s. A member of the National Interfraternity Conference Executive Committee from 1954 to 1960, Locke produced NIC’s first booklet on the federal taxes affecting college fraternities. As Knight Commander he established two chapters. He was a prominent member of the legal profession, serving as executive attorney of the Tax Division of the Department of Justice and clerk of the U.S. Tax Court as well as an assistant to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the special assistant to the attorney general of the United States . Locke died on April 30, 1982, in his native city.