RHO RHO CHAPTER HISTORY

Detailed Early History written by Frater Bill Vahrenkamp

On October 3, 1985, four suite mates in Lawrence House at Sam Houston State University pondered the idea of starting a new fraternity at Sam Houston. The original thought was to start a local fraternity. Realizing this was a bad idea, they wondered what fraternity was not at SHSU. One of them had a friend who was a Teke at Epsilon-Omicron chapter at the University of Houston. The decision was made to look into TKE as their new fraternity.

With the help of The Baird Manual on Fraternities the phone number to the Office of The Grand Chapter was located and a phone call to Mark Fite started things rolling. We received a copy of Information to Petitioners and we quickly submitted the papers required for colony status.
We were allowed to wear the letters-TKE on campus and we wore them for the first time to homecoming. We received a lot of attention; people knew the Tekes had invaded Sam Houston State. We started attending IFC meetings and began to be well known in the greek community.

Our colony charter was received and dated November 20, 1985. A colony signing party was held and all founding members signed the charter. We realized our main goal was to get our chapter charter.

The spring of 1986 brought another semester of membership recruitment. Epsilon-Omicron chapter from University of Houston invited us to their rush parties. It was through attending these rush parties that we came into contact with David Garrett, whom later became our chapter advisor. We also met Jay Bohner, Red River District President and Jay Wranishar, District Vice-President, both who have been instrumental in helping us along the way. Parting with Epsilon-Omicron started a long friendship with our colony and their chapter. Epsilon-Omicron eventually became our big brother chapter.

The enthusiasm of the colony increased, but rushing was difficult. Many parties and mixers were held, including a pool party and a Bar-B-Q. Five members attended the Leadership Conference in New Orleans and more Teke contacts were made.

Teke participation in IFC events flourished. Tekes attended all functions and parties sponsored by IFC. The Spring's most important IFC event, Greek Week, was well participated in, for the first time, by Tekes. The Teke Silver Bullet was the most talked about car in the soap box derby race. It beat the Alpha Tau Omega car which had won the race for three years in a row.

Over the summer, Dennis "Buckwheat" Perry, Director of Chapter Development, contacted the colony about becoming one of his colonies. For this, we are very thankful to him. For the Fall Semester, two members moved into a small two bedroom house at 1304 21st. This house came to be known as the "Teke House." Rush parties and mixers were held at the "Teke House" that semester.
That Fall we participated in our first formal rush with all of the other fraternities at Sam Houston. Flyers, word-of-mouth, and parties proved successful. After formal and informal rush was over we had eight new associates ready to begin the associate member program. It had to be completed by "Buckwheat's" arrival.

"Buckwheat" arrived October 1, and started teaching us the organizational structure of TKE. He taught us how to be an efficient colony which was something we needed to know to become a chapter.

On October 4, in the afternoon, we had a Bar-B-Q with all of our invited guests. The occasion was to celebrate our upcoming initiation later that night.

At seven o' clock we began our initiation. Twenty undergraduates and two honorary members took the bond of our fraternity. It was a beautiful ceremony conducted by the Epsilon-Omicron chapter. In attendance was Walt Tart, Mayer Region President; Jay Bohner, Red River District President; Jay Wranisher, District Vice-President; Felix Bishop, District Vice-President; Dennis "Buckwheat" Perry; David Garrett, Chapter Advisor, and members from Epsilon-Omicron and Nu-Xi of Stephen F. Austin University.

During that semester we gave flowers to four sororities on their founding day. It was the first time a fraternity had recognized the sororities this way; it was well received. We also participated in Intramural sports for the first time. Frater Mike Curley won first place in racquetball.
We decided to have another associate class during the Fall semester. We associated five new members who became the Alpha-II class. After the program, we had a very special initiation November 15. We traveled to Houston and jointly initiated our associates with eight associates of Epsilon-Omicron. Each group of officers initiating their own respective associates. It was quite an impressive ceremony for all who attended.

The last big event for Fall 1986 was our Christmas Casual. The money that was used for the party was raised from a shopping spree at Kroger. We raised $400.00 from this fundraiser and found that it gave us much publicity as well as a successful fund-raiser. The Christmas Casual was a great success. Gag Christmas presents were exchanged. Food, drinks, and the DJ really made it a memorable occasion. The night was highlighted by the crowning of our first Teke Sweetheart, Gayla Powell.

The most memorable occasion for the semester was the rental of the first true Teke house in Huntsville. The house, located at 1221 14th Street, was the former residence of Delta Sigma Phi and Pi Kappa Alpha. The rental of the house was a significant step because all of the other fraternities had houses. Our house was comparable to all of the other fraternity houses.

Over Christmas break the house was repaired and made ready for the upcoming rush. The house was used for our first retreat. "Buckwheat" Perry came back to town to guide us during our first retreat. After a thorough attitude adjustment by him, we were ready for a "Buckwheat" retreat.

Not many of us had much sleep the next two nights; however we accomplished much. We had election of new officers, make a budget for the coming semester, voted on new By-laws, and came up with long and short term goals. We were treated to "Chef Buckwheat's" culinary delights as well as learned how to run a retreat.

As Spring rush started, our new house was ready. We had some lavish theme parties including our Teke Island and Teke Ski Lodge party. Six men associated our colony that semester. This was not bad for spring rush at Sam Houston.

Spring semester was our busiest semester to date. We sent eight members to the Leadership Conference in New Orleans. We also had our first sorority mixer with the Delta Zetas. It was a Private Eye party that went over well and also gave us a good name on Sorority Hill.
In sports we were active in many team activities. We made it to the quarter-finals in softball with a winning record. Frater Robert Partin won a first place trophy in his weight division at the Sigma-Chi Fight Night. We also participated in other activities which we did not place in, but brought us together as a team with great brotherhood.

In April we participated in our first Greek Week. We placed in many events, but came in eighth overall. We had a good time and made a good showing to all other Greeks on campus. That weekend after Greek Week, we had our first Red Carnation Ball. It was a joint RCB with Epsilon-Omicron chapter at the Airport Hilton in Houston.
April 16, we had an initiation for all six members of the Beta class. We borrowed Epsilon-Omicron's ritual equipment and ran the entire ritual by ourselves with Jay Wranischer and David Garrett on hand as observers. It was a very special initiation since we were able to perform the ceremony ourselves.

To end the semester, an Easter egg hunt, sponsored by our colony, was held for the Little Red School House Kindergarten in Huntsville. In addition to having car washes to raise money for the colony, we raised money for Mandy Pundt, an Alpha Chi Omega who was Sam Houston's entrant to the Miss Texas Pageant. She was soliciting for sponsors to help pay her way to the contest.

The following Summer, seven fraters lived in the Teke house for the coming year. A massive work force repainted and beautified the Teke house for the coming year. Our letters were painted on the front of the house and a handpainted coat-of-arms was hung on our chimney for the community to see.

Frater Troy Davis and Paul Silva served as orientation counselors for incoming freshman to the university. They were able to rush and get addresses to all incoming freshman and transfer students. Six hundred personally addressed invitations were sent out to attend our welcome-back-to-school party.

With rush well under control, three fraters attended the 1987 Conclave in Washington D.C. It was a wonderful experience to meet Tekes from all over the country.

Fall 1987 began and our welcome-back-to-school party was a success. 200 people attended and had a great time. Many of these people were interested in joining TKE. As rush started, "Buckwheat" Perry arrived in town to check our progress and help with rush. He gave us some great encouragement, many good party ideas, and helped us cook. His ideas included lighting up the backyard and serving a giant banana split, which was a great hit at one of our parties. "Buckwheat" also gave a great speech to all of those in attendance, which people later commented that it helped pursuade them to join TKE (Thanks Buckwheat!).

The attendance at our rush parties was better than most of the fraternities on campus. Of the 160 men signed up for Fall '87 rush, 23 associated with Tau Kappa Epsilon. Sigma Phi Epsilon and Delta Tau Delta who have both been at Sam Houston for twenty five years each got 24 pledges. We were very proud of the fact that we got the second highest number of associates. We have only been involved in three rushes.

We are currently only one month into this semester and many great things have already happened. Frater Bill Vahrenkamp was elected as secretary IFC, we gave out red carnations to all six sororities on campus congratulating them on their pledge classes and inviting them to have a mixer with us this semester. The Delta Zeta's have already accepted and we hope to hear from other sororities soon. We are arranging to have a fundraising project with Alpha Delta Pi Sorority to raise money for St. Judes and Ronald McDonald House (their philanthropy). We have road trips planned to Epsilon-Omicron, Nu-Xi, and Xi-Xi - Southwest Texas State University. We are traveling to these schools for rivalry football games and for brotherhood. We are planning to initiate our Gamma class October 24, and we are also planning to have our petition accepted to become a full-pledged active chapter in Tau Kappa Epsilon. TEKE IT TO THE LIMIT!