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Chapter History
I. The Beginning
In the spring of 2001, Garrett Donnelly decided that it would be in the best interest of the fraternity if he were to spread the ideals of Sigma Pi to Texas Tech University. Brother Donnelly, being a Founding Father of the Zeta Delta chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity, International, joined the business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and began to introduce to fellow members of the business fraternity the idea of creating a new chapter of Sigma Pi at Texas Tech University. After spreading the word to several gentlemen, it was decided by our first national advisor, Matthew Freidman, to come down to Lubbock, Texas and hold a general meeting to inform interested rushees about the ideals and beliefs of Sigma Pi.
II. Colonization
September 9th 2001, Matt Freidman came back down from the national headquarters in Vincennes, Indiana, to colonize the Texas Tech Colony of Sigma Pi Fraternity, International. As the 13th colony to be formed in 2001, the 25 new members of the colony looked to spread the ideals of Sigma Pi throughout West Texas.
III. Executive Council
Prior to the colonization, there was an Executive Council that was composed of Randy Neufeld as President, Jamie Presley as Vice President, Phillip Wilson as Treasurer, Matthew Stallings as Secretary, Drew Abell as Sergeant at Arms, and Garrett Donnelly as Historian.
With the new colony just having been created, it was time to hold our first elections as an official colony in December of 2001. The new President was Jay Vaden, with the Vice-President being Drew Abell. The first elected Secretary was Matt Stallings, the Treasurer was Victor Agafitei, the Sergeant-at-Arms was Nick Miller, and the Herald was Daniel O'Bannon. Craig Harmel stepped up and was elected in October of 2002 to finish out Nick Miller’s term as Sergeant-at-Arms, as Nick was not able to fulfill his duty due to work conflicts.
In December of 2002, the colony held its second official officer elections, selecting our current Executive Council. Jay Vaden was elected to serve a second term as President, Daniel O'Bannon is the Vice President, Justin Cruce is the Secretary, Chad DeMars is our Treasurer, Ben Keyworth is the Sergeant-at-Arms, and Ricky Fourzan is currently our Herald.
IV. The First Year
With the colonization being at the beginning of the fall semester, the quickest and easiest way for the colony to get our name recognized on campus was by actively participating in Texas Tech Intramural Sports. In our first season of intramural soccer, Sigma Pi swept the Greek Red Division and took first place, after only having been together as a group for a few short months. We made it a point to take part in every sport possible, including flag football, basketball, indoor soccer, cross country, swimming, and several others.
Our first real opportunity to make a name for Sigma Pi occurred during the spring semester of 2002. It was our goal to make it known that Sigma Pi was a group of respectable gentlemen that were involved in the community. In order to do this, we started the semester off with a community service/philanthropy event to raise money for the H.U.B. (Helping Undo Barriers) City Playground for Disabled Children. This was a project in the works to build a playground that would be fully accessible to, and usable by, handicapped citizens in Lubbock and the surrounding area. As a colony, we helped contribute more than $1,500 in donations. All of this money went straight to the H.U.B. City Playground. One other main event that all Greeks at Texas Tech take part in is Greek Week, which is a weeklong event that is to promote Greek ideals and inter-Greek relationships on campus.
Also, we had members involved in several other community service events such as Habitat for Humanity, blood drives, and other philanthropies held by other groups, including other fraternities and sororities.
Being involved with community service events and philanthropy events alone was not enough to get out our name established on campus, or to emphasize that we were a group of gentlemen that excel in many areas, including scholarship, leadership, and service. In order to establish ourselves firmly as a vital part of the Texas Tech and Lubbock communities, we decided that it was vital to our success that we get involved with other groups on campus. One thing that we decided as a group was that we would try to support the philanthropic endeavors of other Greek organizations, with an emphasis on helping out sororities whenever possible. We began to invite sororities out to our weekly events, sending sororities flowers on their founder's days, and we do our best to be gentlemen to ladies in every possible way. We topped off this crusade by throwing our first semi-formal. Each member invited a date, and we invited our family members, alumni, and university leaders. The first semi-formal proved to be a worthy event that was a huge success for the colony. We feel like this showed that even though we are a colony, we have the organizational skills, knowledge, and commitment necessary to make an event such as this successful.
It wasn't good enough that we were involved in community service events and that we were known as gentlemen in society. We understood that we needed to be more involved in the Texas Tech community. We began getting members involved in other groups, such as the Student Government Association, Order of Omega Greek Honor Society, Texas Tech Club Sports, Chancellor’s Ambassadors, Tech Lacrosse Team, Tech Hockey Team, Alpha Kappa Psi Business Fraternity, Army and Air Force ROTC, Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, Golden Key International
Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society, Gamma Beta Phi Honor Society, Beta Gamma Sigma Business Honor Society, and university committees, just to name a few.
V. The Second Year
Our second year on the Texas Tech campus began with fall rush. Even with the obstacles that were put in front of us by IFC; once again segregating the large and small fraternities, and publishing incorrect directions to our set rush meeting places, we as a colony successfully recruited four quality men. With our numbers still below where we needed to be in order to charter, we set forth once again on the quest to seek out more quality men who could help to spread the ideals set forth in the Creed of Sigma Pi.
With the recruitment of quality members being one of our main goals of the upcoming year, we had to participate in every possible “rush” event. One of the rush events that we took part in each week before home football games was “Raider Gate.” Raider Gate is a tailgate party in which anyone on campus could reserve parking places outside the stadium before every home football game and set up a barbeque pit and have friends and family come and socialize before the games. Taking part in Raider Gate proved to be a positive event for the colony, because at every tailgate, the colony invited out prospective candidates for rushing Sigma Pi. Inviting them out to the tailgate allowed the colony members to get to know the prospective candidates, and the prospective candidates to get to know the colony members. Doing this allowed the candidates to further analyze whether or not Sigma Pi was something that they might be interested in, and it also gave the colony the chance to analyze whether or not the candidates were the type of young men that could become good brothers of Sigma Pi. Furthermore, taking place in Raider Gate proved once again that Sigma Pi is a leader and a trendsetter on campus. From the very first weekend of Raider Gate last fall, Sigma Pi showed up in full force every weekend to support Texas Tech Football and to kick back, relax, and have some fun. While other fraternities and groups at Tech participated in Raider Gate, Sigma Pi was the first to occupy 8 parking places each week, to have our large flag waving victoriously over the event, to have a barbeque smoker, and to have an EZ-Up Shelter for people to stand under when it was too hot, or too cold. We had all of these traditions started the first week of Raider Gate last year, while other people just showed up with their trucks and drank beer. By the last week of Raider Gate, most fraternities on campus were trying to emulate Sigma Pi. Most of them had procured a smoker to cook in, almost all of them were brining their smaller flags out and flying them, and several went out and purchased shelter for their guests to use. I am proud to say that once again, these were all things that Sigma Pi did first at Texas Tech!
With rush still in mind, we as a colony continued to further the reputation of Sigma Pi as being community leaders. To do so, our colony participated in the U-Can-Share Food Drive, in which our colony donated over 300lbs of canned food to the drive, and took first place in the red division for donating the most pounds of canned food. As a reward for donating the most food, the colony of Sigma Pi took part in the NBC nightly new broadcast on December 2nd, 2002. In the spring semester, the colony set up and ran our own blood drive through the United Blood Services of Lubbock. On February 24th, 2003 the colony donated 25 units of blood to the Lubbock community. This was the second blood drive that we had helped United Blood Services with in less than six months, and we also managed to raise over $400 for them. For our contributions to UBS, the colony received the Community Service Award from United Blood Services.
In the social realm, the colony conducted two major social events in the fall semester. The first party was a social event open to all sorority girls at Tech who desired to attend; it was our first annual 1970’s party, which we called “That 70’s Party.” We rented out a popular local bar, “Hub City Brewery,” which is located in the popular Depot District of Lubbock. The party turned out to be a hit, mainly due to the great amount of publicity that we put out about the party, by going to each of the twelve sororities’ chapter meetings, inviting out prospective Sigma Pi candidates, and inviting our friends and family. The other social event we held in the fall semester was our own date party.
The date party was held at Flatlander’s Steakhouse, and each brother attended the sit down dinner with a date. This date party was a lot of fun, and allowed each brother to sit down, relax, and enjoy a dinner with his date and his fellow brothers. A high point of the dinner was when our president, Jay Vaden, received a phone call letting us know that we had in fact donated the most cans to the U-Can-Share Food Drive, and that we were to appear live on the news that night at 10:00!
Intramurals also played a large part in our success in both the spring and fall semesters of our second year. As a colony, we take part in almost every intramural event, which includes flag football, basketball, softball, cross-country, swimming, ping-pong, and the highest success of our intramural year was that as a team we took first place red division in racquetball, beating the closest competitor by more than double their team score. Currently, as a fraternity, we are ranked 3rd place overall in standings between all fraternities on campus.
VI. Rush
Rush for the Texas Tech Colony is a year round activity. It was our belief that every member must be rushing for Sigma Pi 24 hours a day. We have always known that numbers are vital to our success, but we also know that quality men are what we are looking for.
We know that our main strength is that we are able to recruit gentlemen through open rush throughout the entire semester. We constantly seize this great opportunity, and hold open rush events almost every week, where we invite out possible rushees to get them interested in Sigma Pi.
The first formal rush that we took part in at Tech was in the spring of 2002. Formal rush is setup with the fraternities being in two divisions, the Red Division and the Black Division. Red Division fraternities are those whose rosters have less than 75 members, and Black Division Fraternities have over 75 members. We feel like this setup short changes Sigma Pi, because the consensus of the rushees is that they picture Red and Black to mean bad and good, respectively. We took the bad with the good, and put our best foot forward. We successfully rushed one new member during our first formal rush, John Henrichs.
The second formal rush that we took part in was the formal rush of fall 2002. The fall formal rush is much larger in numbers than spring rush, which means that we had a greater chance in recruiting more men. The IFC still split up the fraternities into the red and black divisions. This division hurt us again, because rushees still saw this division as being the division between bad and good fraternities. With this obstacle in front of us again, we emphasized to the rushees that we were a thriving fraternity, and were looking for quality gentlemen. With IFC publishing incorrect addresses and incorrect information about Sigma Pi, we still came through in this formal rush by successfully rushing four new members.
With our continuous efforts in rushing new quality members since our colonization, we as a colony are now at a phenomenal 44 active members!!!
The History of Sigma Pi Fraternity, International
On January 26, 1897, Miss Charlotte N. Malotte, the professor of Latin and French, spoke to a student group at the chapel hour. She spoke on the subject of “College Fraternities” which sparked the interest of several students. Then, on the afternoon of February 26, a new fraternity had its first meeting. When, after a long session, the meeting adjourned, a literary society had been born, though it was yet unnamed.
The founders of the Fraternity, all cadets at Vincennes University, were William Raper Kennedy, James Thompson Kingsbury, George Martin Patterson, and Rolin Rosco James. The first three were seniors; James was a freshman.
Samuel and Maurice Bayard were the first initiates. They were made members of the Fraternity before a name was selected or a constitution adopted. Many of the first meetings of the Fraternity were held at the old Bayard home. At the Bayard house, the constitution was written and the first ritual was developed and used in the loft of the family’s carriage house.
According to history, the mother of the first two initiates, Mrs. Bayard, took a deep interest in the organization and used her influence to steer Tau Phi Delta in the right direction. On one occasion she entered the library of her home to find a meeting of the Fraternity in progress. The business of the hour was the adoption of an appropriate motto. No satisfactory agreement on the subject had been reached. Taking a volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems from a shelf, she turned to A Death In The Desert, and read:
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Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone, |
“That,” Mrs. Bayard said, “would make an excellent motto for your organization.” With this remark she left the room, and her suggestion had accomplished its purpose. A motto had been found. It would be appropriate to say Tau Phi Delta was hardly a fraternity chapter, as that term is now understood. Rather, it was a combination of the fraternity idea and the old style literary society, the like of which flourished in almost every college in the United States in the 19th century. However, in all its outward aspects, Tau Phi Delta possessed the characteristics of a fraternity chapter. It was strictly secret and possessed a password and a grip and included an initiation ritual. Its badge was a simple black shield, with a border of gold, upon which were displayed the Greek letters TFD. The colors were black and gold, and the red clover was the official flower.
Tau Phi Delta first began to show signs of expansion in about 1904-05. The beginning of the college year found three members of the Fraternity attending the University of Illinois and seven at Indiana University. In May, 1905, the members at Indiana effected an organization and petitioned the Vincennes chapter for authority to establish a second chapter there. The petition was denied. The members felt the proposed chapter would be unable to compete with the fraternities on the state university campus. During that year also, the organization first began to officially call itself a fraternity, and steps were taken toward incorporation under the laws of Indiana. A proposal of one of the members to expand the Fraternity into a national organization with chapters in junior colleges was also considered. Suitable material was not found, and the project was abandoned without formal action. February 11, 1907, is a significant date in the Fraternity’s history. It was then the members last assembled as Tau Phi Delta and first assumed the name of Sigma Pi Fraternity of the United States. Tau Phi Delta had had limited ambitions for expansion. Soon after the name change, Sigma Pi embarked on a program of establishing chapters on other campuses. On August 30, 1962, in conjunction with the 26th Biennial Convocation, the delegates dedicated the Fraternity’s Memorial Headquarters. During the year following its dedication, Shadowwood was remodeled for occupancy by the Fraternity as its Memorial Headquarters. On July 1, 1963, the executive office of Sigma Pi was officially transferred to the Memorial Headquarters in Vincennes.
The Sigma Pi Educational Foundation and Rose Hill The Fraternity received a substantial gift in 1988, the home and farmstead of Founder George Martin Patterson, “Rose Hill”. Marion L. Patterson Beard, upon her death, left the 226 acre farm to Sigma Pi as a memorial to her parents, George and Mattie Patterson. The farm, owned and operated by the Educational Foundation, is adjacent to Shadowwood and provides the Memorial Headquarters with a combined 240 acres of land. The Sigma Pi Educational Foundation, originally known as the Byron R. Lewis Educational Fund, was established by a vote of the delegates at the 1948 Convocation to further the educational objectives of Sigma Pi. As stated in the proposal, and later incorporated in its constitution, the purposes of the fund were: to assist and supplement the work of colleges in the educational development of students; to assist needy and deserving students to complete their education; and to aid aged or disabled former students who are in need or worthy of assistance. For the first two decades of the fund’s existence, contributions were made at a slow but gratifying rate. By 1970, over $11,000 was available to further its objectives. Today, thanks to the generosity and loyalty of Sigma Pi Fraternity’s alumni and friends, the total assets of the fund exceed $2,300,000.
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In the winter of 1903-04 the Fraternity ceased to meet in the college building and rented a small cottage at 110 South Third Street in Vincennes. This building was occupied until the end of the college year and is considered the first chapter house occupied by the Fraternity.
In 1984, the Fraternity again changed its name. At the 37th Biennial Convocation, Sigma Pi became an international fraternity by accepting
its first Canadian chapter. This international status required the Fraternity to become Sigma Pi Fraternity, International. Today, Sigma Pi is comprised of over 110 active chapters, 12 colonies, and over
77,000 alumni.