PAGE FOUR
SECTION C
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN. LAWRENCE. KANSAS
SUNDAY, MAY 28, 1939
Expand With University
Beta Theta Pi Oldest Chapter On Mt. Oread
- Initiated Five Charter Members in Major Ransom's Home in 1873; 44th Beta Chapter in Nation
The fraternity of Beta Theta Pi was the first of all social fraternities to be established at the University. The local chapter, Alpha Nu, was founded on January 8, 1873, the 44th Beta chapter in the nation.
The three founders initiated five charter members in Major Wyllys Ransom's home in Lawrence. All of the initiates belonged to the "Degree of Orcad Society," a secret men's and women's society, existing within the county of Wyllys Society. The women organized a chapter of the Belt Phi Beta Founded in 1839
The national chapter will celebrate it's 100th anniversary next August at Miami University, Oxford Ohio, where the fraternity was founded in 1839. Thus the fraternity is 25 years older than the University which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.
The Beta's have a fine record scholastically and in intramuraals having won the fraternity scholastic cup 14 years out of the last 16 years and the intramurial cup three out of the last five years.
Alpha Nu captured the "best chapter in the nation" award in 1935. This award is based on scholarship, intramural, financial standing, and general all-around standing on the local campus.
The Kansas chapter has observed many traditions since it's founding. The most famous of these is the Beta Turkey Pull, a dinner dance held at the chapter house the evening preceding the opening of Christmas week. It will be held for the 68th time next December. **Lease 79 Years Old**
Another of the chief customs, which is national as well as local, is the tradition of Father Wooglin, guardian spirit of the fraternity.
Wooglin is supposed to guide and watch over the organization.
watched over the organization. The Alpha Nu chapter moved into its present house in the fall of 1912 largely through the efforts of Earle Murray. The old house was bought by the students of the Secretary of the Interior under President Abraham Lincoln and is 77 years old. The first Beta house was located in the fifteen-hundred block on Tennessee street just south of the present Sigma Chi house. Before securing a house the chaperon used to meet in room above the old Bower-sock theater.
A.O. Pi Originally Was Beta Gamma
Phi chapter of Alpha Omicron Pi was installed May 4, 1918, starting with nine charter members. Until that time, the chapter had been a local sorority, Beta Gamma. The house was located at 13th and Ohio street. Two years later, the chapter bought a house on the site of the present one. In 1927, it was rebuilt and redecorated.
Among some of the more outstanding alumnae of Phi are Mary Rose Barrons, '25, of the Chicago Civic Opera company, radio and concert stage, Hacellie Hedges, '35, owner of the Fazelle Mariotte factory, Kansas City, Mo., and Dr. Patricia Hart Rhodes, c18, of the American Board of Dermatology in Philadelphia.
Alpha Omicron Pi national sorority holds an international convention every two years. This year it is to be at Passdenn, Calif. Jane Chesky, president, will be official delegate from the local chapter.
Phi was featured in the national magazine of the sorority, To Drugma, in the fall issue.
The national sorority as a whole has charge of the Social Service work of the Frontier Nursing service in the Kentucky mountains Alpha Omicron Pi has been a memorial to Emanuel Ephelenic Congress since 1905. At present there are 23 members in the local chapter.
Delta Tau Delta Combined With Rainbow Society
\* Group Started at Bethany College in West Virginia; Local Lodge Is One of Baby Chapters
Today Delta Tau Delta with her 75 chapters, spreading across the United States from Maine to Florida and Massachusetts to California and Canada, represents the combined international organizations.
The Delta Tau Delta fraternity proper was founded at Bethany College in West Virginia in 1858. This group was added in the 1880s another fraternity, the Rainbow Society, which was found in Minster University. Today these two groups go under the name of Delta Tau Delta.
The local chapter located at 1111 West 11th Street is one of the fraternity's "baby" chapters. It was given a charter in 1914. Since then, the organization has abandoned a policy of expansion feeling that the addition of affective central control and a more unwieldy fraternity.
Gamma Tau, the Kansas chapter, is an outgrowth of the Kelitz club, an organization which had its roots in the early 1880s. This body whose membership varied from 20 to 35 men per year during its early period petitioned the national fraternity for admittance in 1912. Two years of investigation followed and then the charter was granted.
Since his founding in 1914, the local chapter has progressed rapidly. In 1929, the fraternity built a new house at 1111 west 11th street. This replaced the old one on Indiana now occupied by Sigma Alpha Mu.
The fraternity claims among its distinguished graduates in this region, Ralph T. O'Neill, chairman of the Board of Regents, Henry J. Allen, former governor, and Topaka publisher, George Dern, former Secretary of War, and Frank Stockton, Dean of the School of Business.
Alpha Chapter of Phi Chi Delta Located Here
Phi Chi Delta, Presbyterian Women's national sorority, was formed in 1930 by the uniting of five local Presbyterian organizations in Midwest colleges into one national sorority. As the organization at this college, it was the oldest of the five, it was assigned to the Alpha designation.
On Sept. 15, 1914, a number of active members of Omicron chapter a Baker University installment Phi chapter of Alpha Chi Omega here at the University. There were 15 charter members.
Since that time the members of this church group have devoted themselves to religious discussions, ministry services, and student fellowship.
Two province presidents, Mayne Wilson Havenhill and Rud Miller Winsor is well as Myrna Vand Zantib Bennett, extension vice-president, have been taken from this chaper's ranks. Mrs. Winsor became one of the National Counsellors in 1935. Mr. Winsor had a private home since December, 1927.
Each year the pledge receiving the highest average has her name engraved on the scholarship cup and if she receives 15 hours or more of A's she is presented with a jewelled guard for her pin.
Fifteen Alpha Chi Charter Members
Since the founding of the chapter,
Phi has initiated 355 members, 14 of whom have received membership in Mortar Board, and 15 in Phi Beta.
The Mother's Club which formerly held its meeting in Lawrence is now organized in Kansas City and Topeka. The group in Kansas City the mothers of Ocronen and Alain Mu (University of Missouri).
Lunch Stand in Fraser in 1913
Permission to run a lunch stand serving "cold lunches only" was granted to Carl A. Neibling, a student at the University, allowed to serve only at noon and only in the basement of Fraser hall.
Four Women Founded Theta's
- This Group at University For More Than Half a Century
Kappa Alpha Theta, the first Greek letter fraternity for women, was founded at De Pauw University, Greencastle, Ind., Jan. 27, 1870 by four women students. For more than half a century Kappa chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta has been part of the University of Kansas, at Lawrence; so it has known all but the first decade of national Theta history. Kappa chapter was founded March 18, 1881.
The history of Thea house includes the usual years of meetings in private homes, a hired hall which served as a chapter room, fraternity
life centered in a small rented house and finally the first real Thetia home, built for the chapter and occupied in 1912. This house, a white colonial frame dwellings was Theta's home for twenty-five years. Some years ago the building board purchased a site for a new Theta house. The location is interesting, being in one of the older residence portions of the city, on the eastern slope of Mount Orchid, a fitting location for one of Klaus Urschel's old fraternities. This lot is closely associated with the beginning of Lawrence, having early come into possession of one of the settlers from New England in the 1850's.
The year old Theta house offers adequate room for fifty women and their house mother. It is of Georgian colonial architecture, built of red brick, with white pillars, shutters, and trimmings. The lot on
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'College Widow' Becomes Early Sig Alph Member
The Stigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity was founded on March 9, 1856, at the University of Alabama, in the old city of Tuscaloosa. The chief originator of the fraternity was a student named De Votte. De Votte conceived the idea for a brotherhood which would perpetuate the ties that bound the eight founders. In the late hours of a stormy night, the friends met in an old southern mansion and by the evening, organized Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
The first meeting was held in a building that was known as Johnson's Schoolhouse. Noble LeslieDie Votet presided. The official badge was designed by John Rudolph, and was accepted at this first meeting. The badge has come down through the years with but little change. The constitution was read and discussed at this meeting and adopted the following week. At the second meeting Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, was made the patron goddess of the fraternity.
On the outbreak of the Civil War, six of the seven living founders enlisted in the Confederate army. The secretary work and the effects of SAE were left in the care of a "coolie widow" named Lucy Pattie. At the end of the war she was initiated into SAE to show their appreciation of her good work. She remained initiated for years, but Noble Leslie De Voitte will be remembered as the first man to lose his life in the Civil War.
In 1891 the violet was adopted as the flower of SAE, in 1929 the ground was broken for the Levere Memorial Temple in Evanston, Ill., in memory of all of the members who have died in any war since 1856.
Kansas Alpha of Sigma Alpha Episi was installed at the University of Kansas on February 14, 1903. The founders were Rosece Chamber, Alber Killorge, Rey Filkin, Filkin Filkin, Eben Pyle, Charles Wine, O, C. Seewirth, Dwight Frost, Leo Crabb, Thomas Reed, Frank Jarvis, Chandler Robbins, Joseph Plumb, George Behr, Joseph O'Neill.
There are at the present time 111 active chapter, located in 42 states, of the 111, 90 own chapter houses.
Pi Phi Is First Social Sorority At University
- Granted Charter on April, 1873, to Eight Members; 81 National Chapters
Sixty-six years of service and activity on the Campus is the record which the Kansas Alpha Chapter of Pi Beta Phil claims for itself on M. Oread. Since it was granted its charter April 1, 1873, and made its university chapter in 1895, the University chapter has grown until it now includes 50 active members.
Of the 81 chapters of Pi Beta Phi now established in the United States and Canada, the Kansas branch was the third to receive the charter, and Campbell was the fourth. Since the chapter was established it has moved once, from 1245 Oreed to the house now maintained at 1246 Mississippi.
Charter members of the sorority were: Mary Richardson, Hannah Oliver, Clara Morris Perkins, Lazie Yongleay Shibu, Vina Lambert Scripps, Emily Stansbury, Karen Walker, Flora Richardson Colman, and Alma Richardson Wallace.
Christian Church Sponsors Sorority for Students
Kappa Beta, national organization for University women of the Christian Church, grew out of a similar organization, Zeta chapter of Bethany Circle, founded on this campus in 1920. The first chapter was started ten years before at the University of Illinois.
The name of Bethany Circle was changed to Kappa Beta at the national convention held in Manhattan May, 6, 1927, because of conflict with other church and business organizations.
Meetings of the sorority are held in Myers hall for the discussion of religion and the companionship of University women students.
Congratulations from Men's Pan-Hellenic
The fraternities at the University of Kansas offer their heartiest congratulations to the University for its growth and development through the 75 years of progress.
Since 1873, the year of the first fraternity at the University, Greek Letter organizations have been proud to link their names with K. U.
Acacia
Alpha Tau Omega
Delta Chi
Beta Theta Pi
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Upsilon
Kappa Sigma
Phi Gamma Delta
Today, opportunity for the eager individual to attain knowledge and culture can be acquired easily and freely at our institution of learning. Fraternities belonging to the Men's Pan-Hellenic Council are proud to promote that opportunity.
They are happy in participating in making this 75th anniversary a complete success.
Phi Delta Theta
Phi Kappa Psi
Pi Kappa Alpha
Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Sigma Chi
Sigma Nu
Sigma Phi Epsilon
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