I spent the weekend celebrating a wonderful Centennial. Pi Beta Phi’s chapter at Kansas State University turned 100. I would venture to guess that no college woman going through recruitment makes her decision based on an upcoming chapter anniversary. Yet, chapter anniversaries offer collegiate members the opportunity to see that membership really is for more than three or four years. To see women who graduated decades ago, some as far back as the 194os, come back and pick up their conversations as if no time had transpired, is heartwarming. Memories flood back, names and events come back into focus.
The way in which our organizations operate is that we come into it when we are young, as college students, and then we leave with a badge over our hearts and memories galore. We get older and the collegiate members stay the same age, they just come and go. Funny how most of us end up being alumnae/i for a good many years more than we were active members. And at some point there are none of us left from a certain generation, but the organization still moves on. Charter members never, ever make it to the Centennial.
At the Centennial I attended this weekend, the oldest alumna was initiated in 1941. She had eight children and a career as a dietitian. She still plays tennis at a club to which one of my Pi Phi friends belongs. She confided to me that she was not as active in the alumnae club as she would have liked because for most of her life she was working and was also active in an organization called P.E.O. That made me smile and I told her that I, too, was a P.E.O. There was another alumna initiated in 1945, and another in 1947. The one in 1947 started a complete line to the present day. Every year from 1947 was represented!. Women living in 32 states, Washington, D.C. and London, England, made their way back to Manhattan, Kansas, to celebrate the anniversary of their chapter. How amazing is that?
Next weekend, Tri Deltas will return to Manhattan and the same scene will play out in the Tri Delta chapter house. Their badges will be different, but their memories will be similar. Chi Omega and Alpha Delta Pi also celebrate 100 years on the K-State campus this year, and Kappa Kappa Gamma follows next year. A goodly number of GLO chapters were installed in the late 1910s, so Centennial celebrations will be taking place in the upcoming years, as well as other anniversaries – 25, 50, 75, 125, 150. They are testaments to the fact that our organization are meaningful and offer opportunities beyond collegiate life.
It was fun to see Pi Phis I knew and it was terrific to meet women with whom I had exchanged e-mails. Alice Lobenstein, a 1958 initiate, e-mailed me a while back. She asked if the Pi Beta Phi crest had set colors. She explained, “I started a wall plaque crest using mosaic glass a few years after graduating in 1961. Thought I might finally finish for Chapter’s Centennial Celebration in March. Can not find what I used as a model. Colors I had been using were more natural life – light blue background and browns for Eagle body, golds for arrow, IC, eagle’s talon’s and beak. If I was wrong using those colors, I will not continue with the project.” I sent her some pictures, and I encouraged her to finish the project. I told her the design was more important than the colors and I’ve seen the crest done in different colors. How wonderful it was to come up the stairs from the basement and meet Alice right by her creation.
Alice Lobenstein and the mosiac Pi Beta Phi crest she completed in time for the Centennial. The project was started in the 1960s.
At the Saturday luncheon, we were entertained by an a cappella group named Cadence (http://www.cadenceksu.com/#!current-members/c1zdl). Cadence was founded in 1998 and its members like to sing in a variety of styles. One of the Pi Phi chapter members told me that most of the Cadence members belong to fraternities. The group sings at many special chapter events such as Mom’s Weekend.
It was also fun because the chapter has two alumnae currently serving on Pi Beta Phi’s Grand Council, Marla Neelly Wulf and Cindy Rice Svec. They have three daughters between them, and they, too, belong to the K-State chapter and were in attendance. That was a Pi Phi first.
On Thursday, June 3, 1915, the local society Phi Kappa Phi was installed as the Kansas Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi. The honor society Phi Kappa Phi had only taken on the name Phi Kappa Phi in 1900 and in 1915, Phi Kappa Phi the national honorary continued to struggle to earn a reputation. It was quite likely that not many people in Kansas knew of the organization which began on the east coast at the University of Maine.
Phi Kappa Phi first began to petition Pi Beta Phi in 1911. Petitioning was an art form in the early 1900s. Local organizations wanting to affiliate with a national organization produced expensive and elaborate petition books and sent them to the Grand Council members and each chapter of the organziation. In 1914 and 1915, representatives from the nearest chapters gave their endorsement to the petition of Phi Kappa Phi. The formal endorsement of Grand Council was received March 20, 1915. Phi Kappa Phi then issued its formal petition and received news of the granting of the charter via telegram on May 30.
A letter from Pi Phi’s Grand Treasurer, Anne Stuart, about the chapter’s petition.
Kansas Beta of Pi Beta Phi was installed four days later, on June 3, 1915. An event was planned in four days! It took place at the Carnegie Library and the celebrants had to be out of there by 9 p.m. due to a faculty ruling that no events go later than 9 p.m. on a weeknight. Baked white fish, Saratoga chips and Maryland Chicken were a few of the items on the menu. Neapolitan ice cream and cakes were the dessert. In 1915, making and serving ice cream was no easy task. The Korameier orchestra played. They hired an orchestra on a few days notice. It’s incredible to me how quickly that event came together!
Pi Beta Phi was the second national women’s fraternity to enter Kansas State, Delta Zeta being the first. On short notice, representatives from nine chapters attended. Anne Stuart, Grand Treasurer conducted the installation.
The Manhattan train station. Anne Stuart and several collegians from the University of Nebraska chapter arrived at this station.
The Delta Delta Delta chapter was installed a day or two later. With the Pi Phi and Tri Delta officers in town, a meeting of all national and local organizations was called. On Sunday morning three representatives from each met at the Pi Phi house. The old organization was dissolved, a new one created and Panhellenic problems were discussed. The first time preferential bidding was used at K-State was in the fall of 1926.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2015. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
