As many of you may already know, the Dallas chapter introduced the newest networking event for Texas Tech Alumni in the Dallas area last September. The Quarterly Business Briefing breakfasts have been a sellout success story from the start. The purpose of these networking breakfasts is to provide an opportunity to Texas Tech alumni to meet and interact with these leaders as well as other area alumni. Proceeds from these events will go directly towards providing scholarships to select Dallas area high school seniors who are planning to attend Texas Tech.

The high-profile breakfast series was kicked off at the Dallas Museum of Art with guest speaker Stephen Jones, COO for the Dallas Cowboys. In November, this was followed up by the mayor of Dallas, Tom Leppert speaking to the group at the Pegasus Ballroom of the Magnolia Hotel. The Dallas chapter now has it’s eyes set in on the February 11th date witch brings in Bob Shapard, CEO of Oncor. Mr. Shapard is a native Texan with a wealth of operating, financial and leadership experience from positions held throughout his career. He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Texas Tech and is a certified public accountant.

The final breakfast of the series, which is slated for April 1st, highlights the chairman and CEO of Hunt Oil, Ray Hunt. Mr. Hunt has received numerous awards through his career including being elected to the Texas Business Hall of Fame as well as receiving the Distinguished Service and Leadership Award of the 25-Year Club of the Petroleum Industry. He was also appointed by President George W. Bush to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in Washington, D.C.

We hope that you will be able to join us at either or both of these upcoming breakfasts. To find out more information on tickets for this event, sponsorship packets, who our current sponsors are or other information, please visit the Business Series web page.

As if Texas Tech’s victory over #1 Texas this year wasn’t enough, we found out during our December chapter meeting that the Texas Tech / UT pre-game happy hour held at Hotel Zaza brought in $100 that was donated to the Dallas chapter of the Gilda’s Club.

The Gilda’s Club creates communities of support for anyone living with cancer. Their program is an essential compliment to the care and treatment of people living with cancer with support and networking groups, lectures and workshops as well as social activities. The Gilda’s Club of Texas is located here in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas.

The Texas Tech Alumni Association is sponsoring a Texas Tech Day in Austin on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009. This is an opportunity for Texas Tech alumni to speak with your elected officials about Texas Tech and higher education in our state. A delegation from the university will be in attendance to promote the Texas Tech message, highlight what the needs of the university are to reach a flagship status and to increase funding provide to Texas Tech from the legislative bodies.

The schedule of the days is as follows:
8:30am - Breakfast and Orientation
10:00am - Recognition in the House Chamber
11:00am - Recognition in the Senate Chamber
12:00pm - Luncheon with Special Guest Speaker
1:30pm - Personal visits to State Legislative Offices
5:30pm - Texas Tech Reception at Stephen F. Austin Hotel

To learn more about Texas Tech Day in Austin contact:

Jim Douglass
P.O. Box 45001
Lubbock, Texas 79409-5001
806.742.3641 Ext. 228
806.742.0283 Fax
jim.douglass@ttu.edu

In our continuous effort to raise scholarship money for area high school graduates heading to Tech, the Dallas Chapter is now selling Texas Tech Alumni Association pint glasses at $5 a glass. In case you find yourself wondering what exactly you need a Texas Tech Alumni Association pint glass for, a few examples have been provided below.

If, after looking over these examples, you are ready to find out how you can go about owning one of these pint glasses then send an email to Jessica Tannheimer. She can give you all the information on when, where and how. Even better, you can also pick up one of these pint glasses at any one of the happy hours or game watching parties hosted by the Dallas chapter. Just check out our calendar to get all the details on these events. Keep in mind these glasses are going pretty quick, so consider yourself officially informed.

After a good run around Dallas’ own White Rock Lake

Watching a Texas Tech football game

A late night snack

Before you head out the door in the morning

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Dallas chapter of the Texas Tech Alumni Association, we would like to thank our Alumni base for the anticipation, endorsement, and ongoing interest in our game watching parties.

In an effort to promote events and meet our fans’ expectations, we continually search for additional ways to compliment your game watching experience. With last weekend’s webcast against Nevada, we were confronted with some challenges due to the technical differences involved with a webcast vs. a televised game and increased attendance. We are confident this will no longer be an issue with our official game watching locations.

For the remainder of the games televised this season, they will be available in the main bar areas of Blackfinn, our official game watching location, and at Campisi’s (5405 Lover’s Lane). Going forward, these venues are committed to accommodating our Red Raider fans and alumni. Please check our website www.dallastechsan.org for details on upcoming games. We look forward to seeing you at the remainder of the game watching parties, and GO TECH!

For those of you with a LinkedIn account, or for those who have considered signing up for one, I wanted to highlight a LinkedIn Group that has been active and growing for some time now. The group name is called Texas Tech Group and it’s primary function is to stay in touch with other alumni, students, staff and faculty as well as work to build a stronger Texas Tech network. Since the group’s inception back in December of 2007, the size has now grown to over 500 members. Once a member of the Texas Tech Group, you will be able to view the profiles of other group members as well as view and participate in group discussions.

Toby Rider, Texas Tech alum and LinkedIn group administrator, has generously devoted his time to managing this group and keeping it active. For new members, Toby encourages individuals to send an email with the subject line: “TTU Intro: Your Name” and a brief introduction or bio. Then on a weekly basis, Toby will send out a summary of all the new introductions received to the group distribution list. Thanks Toby for taking the time to put this together!

If you haven’t already joined LinkedIn or the Texas Tech Group, you should take a look at what these networking tools have to offer. It’s a great way to grow and manage your professional network all while keeping in contact or meeting new supporters of Texas Tech.

As many of you may already know we are quickly approaching that time of year again when college students across the country begin to make their way back to campus for the fall semester. It’s also that time of the year when the Dallas chapter honors the recipients of our annual academic scholarship. This year’s scholarship reception and freshman send off is being held at Campisi’s, one of Dallas’ favorite Italian restaurants which is also run by Tech alumni David Campisi.

Each year our Scholarship committee works with area high schools in promoting Texas Tech as well as advocating the scholarship that the Dallas chapter offers to students planning on attending Tech upon graduation. This involves attending college nights hosted by local high schools, sending out applications to school counselors, compiling and reviewing each and every application submitted and ultimately narrowing down the applicants to a final list that is presented to the Dallas chapter. The recipients of these scholarships are individuals who have excelled academically as well as in extra curricular activities such as athletics, theater, student government, church and the list goes on and on.

What some people may not realize is that providing scholarships to these high school graduates is one of the most important activities the chapter takes on. Every event held by the Dallas chapter, from the 3rd Thursday Happy Hours to Tech game watching parties and other social events is in an effort to raise money for these scholarships. And it’s because of the generosity of our Dallas alumni and their businesses that our chapter has had success year after year in awarding these incoming freshman with our chapter’s scholarship award.

Thanks for helping us make our scholarship program such a success and please don’t hesitate to get involved if you’d like to help us continue our effort in raising even more money so that we can offer even more scholarships in the future!

Hello Red Raiders! The Dallas Chapter of the Texas Tech Alumni Association is very excited about the newest addition to our DallasTechsan.org website, which is of course, this blog. In the upcoming weeks and months, we plan to use this as a place where we can update you on the things that are important to the Dallas Chapter and Texas Tech University. Think of this blog as the voice of the Dallas Chapter where you can find information on networking and community service events as well as scholarship information and ways to get involved.

Check back often as we begin to add more posts and learn how all the new features on our new blog work. If there are things you like or don’t like, let us hear about it. We’ll continue to enhance it and hopefully make it as interactive as possible so that we can continue to build our network of alumni here in the Dallas area.

Go Tech!