Looking back my college experience was amazing. I took advantage of all that college had to offer. As a freshman I believed that I should go through RUSH. This is where you are looked at by the various Fraternities and are either accepted or rejected. A brutal experience, especially if you are rejected. I fell into that category. Bummer. Was it something I did, or said, was I too short, too lame, too geeky, too un-cool. Whatever the reason, I simply didn’t pass muster. It was a blow to my self-esteem. I wasn’t really sure why this happened. After sometime I came to accept the fact that I was a loser. Eventually I started rationalizing the entire process and came to the conclusion that I wasn’t a loser at all. I also found a number of friends who were also rejected and we decided to look into starting our own fraternity, not try to join any of those existing fraternities. We looked around and Kappa Sigma had a local alumni organization and we spoke to them and applied for a charter for a chapter at Wichita State. We submitted the application, rented a big house near campus, got the local organization to sponsor us. Our name for the first year was Kappa Sigma Sigma. Once we were granted a charter, we became Kappa Sigma. I still think that our 50 or so charter members became the best fraternity at Wichita State. We had smart guys, a lot of jocks, and a great group of guys. In the beginning I lived in the basement of that frat house. It wasn’t like Animal House and we were never put on double secret probation. We did have a real Juke Box in the basement. My favorite song and the greatest party song ever was, “Gimme Some Lovin”, we played it all the time.
I eventually moved out because there were too many distractions at the fraternity house. We did have a cook and meals were served. There were always guys around to play pickup basketball and football games, tennis, and any number of other things. We had a ping pong table which provided legendary games. We had toga parties and a lot of other parties that were great. I didn’t want to be, but it was hard not to be “preppy”. I mean you had to project “the image”. I honestly didn’t feel like we subscribed to the status quo. We tried to do good works, not be too cool and create an atmosphere that was happy, healthy and wholesome. I did wear saddle shoes and most of my shirts had button down collars, I also was a Dockers guy before Dockers. I am not going to say that we didn’t drink, but on balance, we didn’t drink that much and I didn’t drink at all, never have. Kappa Sigma was a great alternative for those guys who wanted to be part of a fraternity without being pretentious.
The office in the fraternity right below President was Pledge Trainer. That was my job. I was responsible for dealing with the pledges. It was an important job and I had to keep them in line and set them on a path to full membership. This also included having a Hell Week. We reduced that to a Hell Night and let that be the main initiation event. No real hazing, they had to wear an onion around their neck and take bites out of the onion all night. Not very pleasant. Other than that, I remember we had some rituals and obviously they were all granted membership after that night. It was not harsh and all went well. I only held the office for one year. After that it was handed off to another person. I think I was responsible for around 10 pledges during my one year as Pledge Trainer. They all became brothers and helped make Kappa Sigma the great fraternity that it turned out to be.
Some things are just meant to be. Our chapter still exists to this day… It is now about 55 years old. The fraternity eventually built a fraternity house of our own and I feel like what we created turned out to be a great thing. Kappa Sigma has a huge national presence and I continue to receive the fraternity publication named the Caduceus which keeps me up to date on Kappa Sigma activities all over the country. If I have a regret, it is that I didn’t keep in touch with my brothers after graduating. I am sure that many of them went on to do great things. You can never know what your ideas will lead to. In the beginning it was just a few guys who wanted to be part of something and it led us to create this fraternity at Wichita State. I really feel good about the fact that it still exists. Some-day I hope to visit the campus and the Kappa Sigma Fraternity House. It would be great to meet the guys that are making it a continuing organization… those bright shiny faces are going to make the future excellent for us all.
