What is a Distinguished Service Key (DSK)?
Distinguished Service Keys are the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a brother of Alpha Phi Omega at either of 4 different levels:

National                         Regional                              Sectional                            Chapter

There is no standard criteria to receive the award, except for a rather vague description of “going above and beyond.”  Because this is such a high honor, there does NOT have to be a recipient every year.

Myth of Rho Pi’s DSK
It had been long believed and taught to pledges, at least since 2003, that Bella Fong was the lone recipient of our chapter DSK for her role in re-chartering Rho Pi in 1994.  From that point forward, whenever a worthy brother was nominated for DSK, people would ask who the last recipient was and why it was awarded.  When it was revealed that it was to Bella Fong for re-chartering Rho Pi, the nominee would either decline or people would speak against the candidate receiving the award because their accomplishments would seem insignificant in comparison.  In 2005, the chapter finally decided to break the cycle of comparing each brother’s contributions with re-chartering Rho Pi and awarded 3 DSK recipients that year.

In 2007, it was revealed that Bella Fong had, in fact, NOT received a Chapter DSK from Rho Pi.  Instead, she received a Section 2 DSK for her efforts in the rebirth of this chapter (and she also had gotten a Chapter DSK from her original chapter, Iota Phi [UC Davis]).  In the end, Rho Pi did honor her with the Rho Pi Chapter DSK at the Rho Pi Reunion in April 20, 2008.

Recipient (Year awarded)

Guy Jenkins  (1968)

Juan (John) Cenzano (1995)

Richard Farley (1999)

Melissa Wong(1999)

Natasha Young (2000)

Grace Cheung (2005)

Daryl Sterling, Jr (2005)

Minh Tran (2005)

David Yamane (2006)

Bella Fong (2008)

Miller Huang (2008)

Kent Lee (2010)

Jeannie Ong (2010)