Clinton D. Boyd

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Clinton Dewitt Boyd (1884-1950) was a Middletown, Ohio attorney, Common Pleas judge and politician and was one of four founders of Phi Kappa Tau fraternity as an undergraduate at Miami University.

Boyd was born and raised in Mount Orab, Ohio. He came to Oxford, Ohio in September 1903 as a third-year preparatory student in the Miami Academy. He began his college work in 1904. At Miami, Boyd was both an athlete and one of the most silver-tongued of Miami’s orators. He was a distance runner, representing the varsity track team in the mile and 880-yard events. He captained the team in his senior year and acquired the nickname "Teeny" because of his slight runner’s build, and he was active on the intramural track and basketball teams.

Boyd was a four-year member of the Miami Union Literary Society and was elected vice-president. His speech, "Emancipation of a Backward Race," won him the gold medal in the university’s oratorical contest in 1907.

After Miami, Boyd enrolled in the University of Cincinnati’s law school, and then transferred to the University of Michigan, where he earned his law degree in 1910. He opened a law office in Middletown, Ohio, and was appointed to the common pleas bench of Butler County, Ohio in 1929. A Republican, he was twice reelected to that position, retiring in 1937. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Ohio Attorney General in 1928 and for justice of the Ohio Supreme Court in 1940 and 1946.

Boyd remained actively interested in the Phi Kappa Tau. He was the first person elected to the position of national organizer at the fraternity's Danville, Kentucky, convention of 1915; and worked aggressively to extend the fraternity to Northwestern, Wabash, Purdue, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Carnegie Tech. He was a frequent speaker at Founders’ Day gatherings at Miami and around the country. In the final year of his life, he visited several chapters and alumni on the West Coast.

Boyd helped to initiate his son, Clinton Dewitt, Jr., into Phi Kappa Tau at Miami University in 1948; and Boyd’s grandson, Mark, is also a member.

Boyd was killed in an automobile accident in 1950 when the car he was driving skidded on a slick road in route to the Ohio Republican Convention.

[edit] References

• Anson, Jack L., The Golden Jubilee History of Phi Kappa Tau, Lawhead Press, Athens Ohio: 1957
• Ball, Charles T., From Old Main to a New Century: A History of Phi Kappa Tau, Heritage Publishers, Phoenix: 1996 ISBN 0-929690-29-X