In television, each day is different than the next. One day you’re live at a crime scene and the next day you’re moved to tears hearing the story of a couple that has stood the test of time. As a reporter/anchor at WHO-TV Channel 13 News in Des Moines, Iowa, I could tell lots of stories, but one hits especially close to home.

During a four-man best ball golf tournament, I found out I wasn’t the only SigEp at the station. While waiting to tee-off and speaking about our college days, Patrick Dix, Missouri-Columbia ’96, the morning anchor, Michael Admire, Pittsburg State ’11, a sports reporter, and myself discovered we had a greater connection than a love for golf and careers in television. We are all brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

On the tee, we spoke about our duties within our chapters from serving on the executive board to our roles as alumni, told stories about our brothers, and shared the status of renovations to our chapter homes. Since starting my career, I have thought of ways that our ideals of Virtue, Diligence, and Brotherly Love applied to the television business. In television, we are expected to live lives of virtue. To report the news, you cannot become the news. We are expected to be role models and hold ourselves to high moral standards. Furthermore, through asking tough questions, we hold others to those same standards.

As journalists, we must be diligent in finding the truth. Some leads run into dead ends, but when it comes to keeping the public informed, our job is to break through those barriers. An effective journalist must check, and double-check his or her work to ensure accuracy. A second rate effort always shows on camera.

That day on the golf course, I realized how brotherly love applies to this business. I find myself turning to Patrick more than ever for advice on how to improve my work at the anchor desk and in the field. I look up to him in a similar way to how I looked up to older brothers in my chapter. Patrick is a veteran who has been through many of the things I’m experiencing. He has become a monumental help as I work each day to improve my craft. Michael, on the other hand, is closer to me in age. We will go through many of the same things together in journalism, and in life, over the next few years.

At work, the three of us wear the letters “WHO” but, on the inside, I know the letters Sigma Phi Epsilon are an important part of the balanced men we are today.