We recently caught up with our very own Robert Rankine ’58 and had the chance to ask him about his Delta Tau Delta experience, and where life since Illinois has taken him. Here’s what he had to say:
Where has life taken you since you graduated? Give us a brief recap up to this point including career and family highlights.
I was born on November 30, 1936 in Chicago and grew up in Arlington Heights, Illinois. In fall of 1954 I entered college at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and pledged Delta Tau Delta Fraternity. I received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois in June 1958 and entered the US Air Force as a second lieutenant in September 1958. I received a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in June 1964, graduating first in my class. He received a doctorate in engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles in December 1970 through an Air Force education program. I retired as a Major General from the US Air Force in 1992. My Air Force career included the acquisition of military space systems and the management of the Air Force’s science and technology program. I then worked in the aerospace industry for eight years, retiring (again) in 2000 from Hughes Space & Communications
Company where I was Vice President of Government Marketing. After leaving Hughes, my wife, Sherry, and I moved to Florida and have lived in Pinellas County for 20 years where I serve on the board of a local charity, the College Fund of Pinellas County, Inc. I have three children from a previous marriage, a stepdaughter, six grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.
When you look back on your time in Delta Tau Delta, what moments do you tend to remember most?
Pledge study rules, Pledge bathroom rules, Pledge walk-out trip to Chicago with a captured active, John Street pajama race, silly speeches at initiation banquets,
each active’s name engraved on a fireplace brick, sleeping in the dorm with open windows in the winter, exchanges with sororities, Co-chairing a campus talent show with an Alpha Phi, Trying to get from one end of the campus to the other with only 10 minutes between classes, leading serenades to Delt sweethearts outside sororities, singing with the Deltones quartet at sorority exchanges and campus events, stunt Show planning with a Theta U, Mothers Day with my Mom and Fathers Day with my Dad in the Delt House, Homecoming parade with hats covering our heads & faces drawn on our chests & stomach, Illini football games, joining a snowball fight on my way to class, & rejoining it after class, Interfraternity sports – – basketball (Saints), track, water polo, Air Force ROTC Summer Camp in Waco, Texas, Chapter meetings, U of I’s graduation ceremony… Just to name a few.
Take your pick; I could go on and on….
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