Congratulations to Zeta Epsilon Zeta at UTEP!
 

I just wanted to say congratulations to my old chapter at the University of Texas at El Paso for winning Greek Week yet again! If I'm not mistaken that's another back-to-back Greek Week championship.

After a long drought, we'd gotten tired of watching the same fraternity win over and over back in the 90s so we decided to give it a real effort and try our best in 1997 with the small amount of members we had (I believe it was around 10 or 12 guys) and finished third. In 1998 the fraternity had more than doubled in size and finished first in an enormous landslide. The chapter easily repeated in 1999 before losing by one lousy point in 2000. From there I'm not 100% sure of the years, but I keep in touch with two of the actives and was able to gather that Lambda Chi has won 5 of those last 8, which would mean 7 of the last 10 since 1998.

I know Lambda Chi also did well in awards given to GLOs, but I'm not sure of the specifics as to which were won. Last I'd heard, Lambda Chi also had the highest GPA on campus among GLOs and above the campus male-average.

It's great to hear about the chapter doing so well even though I haven't been active in nearly a decade. It's hard to believe that back in Fall 1996 we were down to five members when we had an emergency meeting at a restaurant near campus to discuss whether we would be able to save the fraternity. Of those five guys, one didn't last but one other one came back; turns out he missed the meeting only because he was watching a Bears game on Monday Night Football and had forgotten about anything else.

(Interesting side note: In May 1996 the Kappa Sigma president had insulted us at a party for one of our members' graduation and acceptance to law school in San Antonio -- "Look where Kappa Sigma is today and look where Lambda Chi is today. Kappa Sig is on top and will be for a long time". In Spring 1997 Kappa Sigma was closed down by their nationals for excessive debt and allegations of drug use.)

Lambda Chi is the oldest fraternity on campus and I'm proud to have been part of that organization. God bless Lambda Chi Alpha!

Saturday, not only was Zeta-Epsilon presented the Greek Week championship, which the chapter won by 175 points, but we cleaned house winning almost every award presented. We recieved fraternity of the year for the second year in row. Greek Scholastic award for the highest GPA on campus with a 2.96 for the second year in a row. We recieved president of the year, which the chapter has won 4 years in a row now. Best new member award for the second year in a row. Greek man of the year for the second year in a row. We got best philantrophy for the North American Food Drive. The only awards our chapter didn't win was most improved chapter, new member programing, and the member scholastic award presented to the person with the highest GPA on campus which one of members lost by a fraction of a point. The chapter also had its largest spring AM class in a long time with 12 AMs, one of which will be my century brother come initiation time.

Whoa... first off that blowout is bigger than any that we had in the 90s. It doesn't look like it was anywhere near being close in most events!

I hope the chapter can eventually get over the 3.0 GPA mark. That would be amazing for a UTEP organization. I still remember when being over a 2.0 would mean that an organization was near the highest on campus... yeesh, how sad it that?

Twelve associates would be the highest I can recall since Honky's class... which was HUGE for a UTEP rush. How soon till ritual?

COOL!!!!:D

How big is the chapter now as far as numbers and in comparison to the other few fraternities on campus? How many sororities are now left?

I think the chapter is around some 30 active guys, and 11 or 12 AMs. As far as the other fraternities, Kappa Sigma claims to be at 80, but we only see the same 15 guys doing everything. Rumor is they have a bunch of community college guys and guys not in school. They turned in their roster at the last minute, and got caught at greek week trying to put in ringers. Phi Delt has around some 30 guys, they just got chartered last year, and a lot of guys were dropped or kicked out after that. AKL has maybe 15-20 guys, and I'm being generous. But they already said that they'll be gone at the end of the semester due to their debt. How funny that they won the best AKL chapter in the fraternity around 2 years ago, doesn't say much for their fraternity. We're the best fraternity at UTEP, and wouldn't even come close to getting an award with Lambda Chi. Omega Delta Phi has around 15 guys, they were down to like 6 guys last semester.
As far as sororities we still ZTA, AZD, Sigma Psi Eta, and Sigma Lambda Gamma.

So the Kappa Sigma thing is just like TKE about 10 years ago? It was the same claims and turned out to be the same thing you just said. EIGHTY guys and they still had to bring out people who weren't even members to help them for Greek Week? That doesn't say much for their chapter involvement.

I assume that Lambda Chi won Greek Week at least one other time between 2001 and 2006. Any clue on those years yet?

Another congratulations... it appears that Honky is going to graduate with his bachelors degree in two weeks! Wow. When we rushed this goofy kid out of ghetto high we didn't know what we were getting. Heck, the guy has been to more international events than all of the other guys put together.