Rick Allen ’62

Initiated into Phi Gamma Delta at Psi Chapter at Wabash College, Brother Allen transferred to the University of Arizona as a sophomore in 1959, where he was immediately welcomed and embraced by his new Brothers and soon received his nickname, Rollaway.

Rick served as float chairman one of his junior years and as Treasurer his senior year. He also has the distinction of being “the only Brother ever to be removed from the Fiji serenade choir by John Ingersoll, Director.”

Rick is currently President and owner, with wife Heidi, of Heidrick-Allen,Inc.,a lamp and lampshade fabrication company in Leawood, Kansas. Previously, he was the retail sales manager of a plastic fabrication company in Kansas City, Mo. He and Heidi owned and operated, for 18 years, The Back Burner, a cookware store and cooking school, acclaimed in 1983 as one of the top 25 cooking schools in the US by a national trade publication.

Brother Allen is very active in his community and is currently serving on the Leawood, KS. Sustainability Commission as well as his third term as President of the Huntington Farms Homes Association. His involvement in his church include several volunteer positions. He is also one of the founding Board members of the Peoria Pacers minor league baseball team. Rick also established the Tom T. Moore General Scholarship, awarded annually to a deserving undergrad.

Brother Allen has also remained active in Fiji as a graduate Brother. He was a three term President of the Kansas City Graduate Chapter, Chaired the 1994 Ekklesia, held in Kansas City, which, at the time was the second best attended in Fiji history and the only profitable Ekklesia for the Educational Foundation. As a side note, Rick indicated the very first Fiji he met in Tucson, John Marietti, was the very first Fiji to support an Ekklesia with a paid sponsorship. In 1994 Rick received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Board of Archons as well as The Distinguished Fiji Award. In 1996 he served as an advisor to the organizing committee for the 1996 Ekklesia.

“Fiji Brotherhood is a cloak we proudly wear our entire lives regardless of contact or conversations. When you have received your Golden Owl, you have outlived some Brothers. In my case, both of my pledge sons, Bob Duncan and Bobby Coil, but you never outlive the closeness of your Fiji Brothers. There is a bond, like an unbroken chain, that bonds us for life. “Not for college days alone” is not a slogan, it is a Fact. Mighty is the pride we all have as recipients of what Phi Gamma Delta has given us.”