Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) was founded on January 10, 1899 at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois. In a meeting at 504 East Locust Street, Charles Roy Atkinson, Clarence Arthur Mayer, James Carson McNutt, Joseph Lorenzo Settles, and Owen Ison Truitt formulated plans for a fraternity they first called the Knights of Classic Lore. The name was changed to Tau Kappa Epsilon when, in 1902, the men rented the Wilder Mansion, a home which formerly belonged to the College’s president. It was the first men’s fraternity house on the campus.
Leland F. Leland
Some of its most famous members include an initiate of the Eureka College chapter the 40th President of the United States – Ronald Reagan, Charles R. Walgreen, Jr., and Elvis Aaron Presley, an honorary initiate of the Arkansas State University chapter.
Banta’s Greek Exchange and Fraternity Month are some of my favorite magazines to read. Both ended publication in the early 1970s. Tau Kappa Epsilon Leland F. Leland, along with his then wife Wilma Smith Leland, Alpha Omicron Pi, began the Fraternity Press and published Fraternity Month from 1933 until 1971.
Leland F. Leland was the 72nd initiate of TKE’s Theta Chapter at the University of Minnesota. He spent several years employed by the George Banta Company before striking out on his own.
The October 1933 edition of Fraternity Month included this introduction:
Fraternity Month and its staff greet you. To tell you what kind of a magazine it is would be to be trite, for you may see for yourselves. We hope you find it all that you may expect of a new, interfraternity publication. Many of you have asked for one which will be read by undergraduates as well as by more mature members. This is the type of magazine we want to produce. Coming with regular frequency, our news will be current and vital. Our articles will be by persons prominent in their field. We will follow a policy of liberalism. Our articles will not reflect our own opinion for this is your magazine and each of you may direct the thought of it so long as you may direct the thought of it so long as you keep within the bounds of good tatse. We welcome your contributions, your suggestions and, about all, your criticisms.
It will be our earnest endeavor to publish all the worthwhile news of all fraternities and all sororities all the time. You may help us by calling our attention to items which you wish to emphasize.
We want timely news, but we are alert to the splendid history and background that Greek-letter organizations have a right to claim. So there will be articles concerning the heritage of fraternities.
We expect our magazine to be read by prominent people who do not wear a badge, and we will feel it a privilege as well as an obligation to interpret the fraternity system to the outside world in a manner fair and honest.
Controversial articles will present both sides of the question. We do not strive to be smart, but to be intelligent with enough levity to be appealing to a public whose tastes are varied. Our magazine is, first of all, a fraternal and educational journal and we expect to keep it so. It is published without profit by the Fraternity Press in a desire to be of real service to the fraternity system.
Small convention favor for the 1936 Pi Beta Phi Convention. The cover of this small (3×5) notebook mimicked the covers of the larger magazine. The graphic may have even been used as the cover of an edition of the magazine.
He was elected his fraternity’s Grand Histor in 1924 and spent 25 years, 1924-49, as editor and manager of THE TEKE magazine. Leland edited a 50-year TEKE history. He was named Grand Histor Emeritus. In addition, he served the fraternity as Grand Prytanis (President) from 1949-51. He died in 1972 at the age of 73.
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