Pi Kappa Phi - Theta Alpha

Alumni Notice from Historian

 

For the few of you who don’t know me, I’m Carson Shomaker and I am the chapter historian. I just wanted to reach out and let you know that if you have any alumni questions, I’d be more than happy to help you out anyway that I can.

 

Just a couple of updates:

 

1. I’m working on our alumni event for the semester and I have some ideas, but if there is anything you’d like to see, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can do.

 

2. I’m interested in hearing what yall would like to get out of the website. If you have any ideas, please email me at carson.shomaker@eagles.usm.edu

 

3. The Annual Alumni Meeting/Breakfast will also be held on Friday night (October 21st) at Brownstone's at 7:00 pm. All alumni are welcome to join the current executive council for a fun night of catching up as well as talking some official business. Can't wait to see you all there.

 

4. Here is the website for the official alumni site: http://www.pikappalum.com

Gentlemen,

 

Here are a few updates from the men of Theta Alpha:

 

• The fall semester is off to a great start. The guys have already signed more recruits than anyone else and the quality seems outstanding. I am really excited about maintaining the high standards we have and our growth. We are hoping for a good 25-28 man associate class.
• Speaking of associate classes, this will be the final class for our chapter in the Greek alphabet, Omega Class. The chapter is really excited to have finally made it through the Greek letters and they are actually talking about a way to celebrate or commemorate the occasion. They have discussed inviting one member of every former class to help with January’s initiation or just an event this spring. It is quite a milestone. Ideas are very welcome and know, they are truly just in the beginning stages of generating ideas
• The chapter won the highest grades recognition for the spring and the only fraternity over a cumulative 3.0
• We will have our 4^th academic dinner on October 25 at Brownstones. We have grown during the past four years from 22 to 26 to 28 to 35 this year. This represents about 56% of the chapter but when you figure everyone above a 2.75 gpa, the percentage of the chapter is like 76%. This event is sponsored mostly by parent contributions. Anyone interested in donating to the event is encouraged
• We had 2 men ride in the Journey of Hope and have 3 accepted for next summer.
• By December, we will have exceeded our goal of $10,000 for the PKP Foundation Chapter Investment Fund and be in the position to offer our first “grant” to a deserving member or for some positive use (student conference, etc). I cannot thank everyone enough for their contributions. As I have heard though from the PKP Foundation, the CIF is a fund which needs to have a good stream of donations to benefit the chapter even more for the long term
• The group of alumni and active members from all chapters met throughout last year talking about new fraternity houses. Everyone is pretty excited but the University has maxed out on its ability to borrow or mortgage any new property. Thus we have been seeking private sources or a combination of private/public/national offices route. We met this summer with a consultant of a private company out of California who has designed and help build new fraternity systems at San Diego State and Bowling Green, Ohio. We are continuing to consult with him for recommendations. It would be a great deal for him as the University could guarantee occupancy so he would be guaranteed his revenue. I am really hopeful we can finalize this for the upcoming year. The University is really hoping for some new houses by 2014 so we really need to work quickly to stay on this schedule. Pi Kappa Phi has more than twice the membership of any other fraternity on the campus

 

Gary