The following article is an expanded version of a member profile on Jim Joel which appeared in the April/May 2015 issue of Moments newsletter.
Members introducing their friends to Reynolds Lake Oconee is a Club tradition that spans more than a quarter century. Hundreds of current members first learned about the community from other members who decided to share their little piece of paradise with the people they admire most.
Jim Joel did so, and as a result, when he and his college fraternity brothers get together for a round of golf, there aren’t a lot of travel arrangements necessary. With some of his closest friends living within the same community, it’s just a few phone calls, some quick calendar checking and then a few practice swings on the range. But these unofficial Sigma Nu reunions certainly weren’t always as easy to orchestrate. The beginning of the story takes us back a few decades, and a few hundred miles to the north.
In 1971 John Denver wrote and recorded the award-winning song Take Me Home Country Roads. The song is an anthem for the state of West Virginia, which it describes as “old there, older than the trees; almost Heaven.” Around the same time Denver was recording his famous song, there were six fraternity brothers (Sigma Nu’s) finishing up their college degrees at West Virginia University; “younger than the mountains, and growing like a breeze.” Who knew at that time that this “sixsome” from the home of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah River would someday end up spending their retirement years together at Reynolds Lake Oconee?
The six Sigma Nu’s are Jim Joel, Mike Carroll, Fred Rine, Robert Goodrich, Ed DeStefano, and Doc Lykins. Following their college years, they went their separate ways as they began their chosen careers ending up in the states of Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, and Colorado. During the early years following graduation, when they were driving down the road, they just got that “feeling that they should have been home yesterday.” When the six would sense the longing for a return visit to the place where they belong (Morgantown, WV) they would gather for a football game. However, as time passed -- and children arrived -- the group saw each other less frequently.
In 1996 that all changed when the brothers got together to celebrate Jim Joel’s 50th birthday. Joel, who had migrated to Atlanta following graduation, arranged to have the sixsome and others to meet at Reynolds over a Memorial Day weekend. Along with family and other friends, they rented cottages, played a ton of golf and “just had the best time,” Joel says. Lykins recalls, “I remember that first night when we stayed up well past midnight talking about our experiences and relationships at WVU.” Once again Denver captures the moment in his lyrical poetry, “dark and dusty, painted on the sky, misty taste of moonshine, teardrops in my eyes.”
Carroll’s and DeStefano’s wives (Janie and Libby) were also a part of those experiences as they likewise graduated from West Virginia. In fact, Janie was affectionately known “as date lady” with the responsibility of getting dates for the unattached brothers on the weekends. “The golf courses were great – we had only two at that time, the Plantation and Great Waters – and it was just so beautiful,” says Joel. “Everyone fell in love with the place. So I asked the guys if they wanted to make it an annual event to meet up here at Reynolds Lake Oconee.”
In the years that followed, one by one, each of the six brothers purchased at Reynolds Lake Oconee; Carroll quickly bought a lakefront homesite at Reynolds Lake Oconee where he and his wife Janie currently live. By the next year, Rine bought a homesite, and Lykins, Goodrich and DeStefano soon followed suit.
To make things easier, the five chums all happened to know a great builder. Joel, who has built custom homes for over 35 years, worked with each of his friends that built at Reynolds Lake Oconee.
“We are all still very close,” Joel said. “We play a lot of golf together. We all love the place.”
Today, two of the brothers (Goodrich and DeStefano) have departed Reynolds to be closer to their kids and grandchildren, and Rine, who is still working, is a part timer. Lykins, Carroll and Joel are year around residents and see each other frequently either on the golf course or at other social events both at and away from Reynolds.
All six brothers are still proud of the state of West Virginia and the radio often reminds them of their home far away. And although they still hear her voice in the morning hour as she calls to them, Denver’s song could read like this for these six fraternity brothers: “Country roads take me home to the place that I belong, to Oconee, lakefront momma, country roads take me home.”
