Alpha Sigma Alpha and Kappa Alpha Psi
Sorority plays games to help children during holidays
By: Janet Robb
Issue date: 2/24/06 Section: Lifestyles
The Murray State News
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By teeter-tottering and playing dodgeball, Alpha Sigma Alpha helps children have a better life and more enjoyable Christmases.
Originally established Nov. 15, 1901, as an education-major-based sorority at Longwood College in Farmville, Va., Meghan King, ASA president, said the organization has grown to accept women of many different majors.
Since 1946, ASA has had a presence at Murray State and uses its love for children to help raise money through its Dodgeball Tournament and Teeter for Tots. These two events raise money for Toys for Tots and two national philanthropies, the S. June Smith Center, a children's hospital, and the Special Olympics.
To help raise more than $500 for the Special Olympics, King, junior from Murray, said 10 members participated in the Polar Bear Plunge in Paducah a few weeks ago. Another popular fund raiser for ASA is its Dodgeball Tournament.
"We started the dodgeball tournament three years ago, and it's really gotten big on campus," King said. "It involves fraternities, sororities and independent teams."
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Kappa Alpha Psi strives for achievement, hopes to continue tradition
By: Janet Robb
Issue date: 2/24/06 Section: Lifestyles
The Murray State News
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Resurrection - that's what the three active members of Kappa Alpha Psi call what they're doing.
"(We're) kind of resurrecting the fraternity - taking it to greater heights," said Ben Rush, Kappa vice polemarch (president).
Rush, sophomore from Starkville, Miss., said even with a small fraternity, they are very busy and have high hopes to rebuild the organization.
"With graduation and a lot of other factors leading to it, that's why we only have three members," he said. "But ... that's why we call us three resurrection."
The fraternity, established Jan. 5, 1911, at Indiana University, was founded because there were not any exclusive black organizations, Geco Ross, Kappa polemarch, said.
"The majority of the African-American Greek organizations came about because there weren't really any organizations that were exclusively for African-Americans during the time of 1911," Ross, junior from Paducah, said. "That's pre-Civil Rights, so a lot of the ideal and foundations of our organizations come from just that."
Ross said founders probably didn't realize the organization would grow into a national fraternity with its own government, stability and international headquarters.
"It has a rich history," Ross said. "A major part of it is just, to say the least, our motto 'Achievement in every field in human endeavor.' The founders set it out, and that's what we're here to keep going."
That's what the three Kappas are doing. On April 15, 1972, 22 men established the Murray State chapter and with an acting alumni association of 86 members, Ross said they have good alumni support.