IKE GULAS
AHEPA's dynamic new Supreme President

When Ike Gulas became Supreme President of the AHEPA his 84-year-old father Alexandros was there to pass the torch. “He’s been a member for 60 years,” says his 45-year-old son. “My father and a few others have pretty much been the backbone of Birmingham’s AHEPA for years however they can’t continue to be as active as they once were. Therefore, I like to think it’s our turn to take the ball and run with it.”

And since his induction, Gulas has never stopped running. A lifelong AHEPA member (“I’ve been to every convention since 1978 and I met my wife Fanoula at a Miami convention at the Fountainbleau”), Gulas and his Supreme Lodge (with the top three officers all 45 or younger) have quickly galvanized the storied, 85-year-old organization.

In short order, he organized a series of caravans, or road trips, with his Executive Director and several lodge officers “in one week we drove approximately 2500 miles. We traveled up the I65 corridor and stopped along the way in cities where AHEPA chapters exist and met with the local AHEPA family and various Greek American organizations to spread the message of the Order of AHEPA. For example, this October in Chicago I spoke to the Hellenic Professional Society there and was able to recruit several new members.” (view entire article)

AOL tycoon Ted Leonsis on his new role as filmmaker

STed Leonsis cried when he premiered his film Nanking last year at the Sundance Film Festival. That’s because he had bankrolled the film, traveled to China to research it, had selected the director and actors, and even helped edit it. And now he was finally seeing the credits roll on a “Film by Ted Leonsis.”

"It really hit me," he told the Washington Post. "It's the first time that I can't believe I had an idea, and now we're in a movie theater watching a movie I made."

Nanking is the harrowing account of the rapes and murders of 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers in the city of Nanking in 1937 and '38 and the idea for it began in an improbable place: Leonsis’ yacht. He was cruising the Caribbean a couple of years ago when he noticed a newspaper obituary on Iris Chang, the author of "The Rape of Nanking," a best-seller about the Japanese atrocities in the city. He read the book, and then he pulled out his checkbook. (view entire article)