Two die at UK, thankfully not at the KS house

[hoosier]

Thank goodness, this wasn't at a fraternity house.

Typically, the dean who hates fraternities would have:

1 - expelled the chapter, call it hazing (even tho it was a member/non-member fight)

2 - closed the house, due to "unsafe" windows

or

3 - closed the chapter, for alcohol violations

But since this wasn't on fraternity property, it is "just an accident"

Fri, May. 03, 2002
2 DEAD
UK student, visitor die in fall from dorm window
School says 2 were wrestling, there was alcohol in room
By Ty Tagami And Linda Blackford
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS


Throughout the day yesterday, students stopped outside the University of Kentucky's Kirwan Tower Dormitory and embraced, in tears. Others walked by and stared quietly at the third-floor window through which two young men had plunged to their deaths early in the morning.

Freshman Jeffrey Pfetzer, who lived on the dorm's third floor, and Matthew Rzepka, the 22-year-old brother of a student on the third floor, smashed through the glass about 2:30 a.m.

Pfetzer, a 19-year-old from Villa Hills in Northern Kentucky, died at the scene. Rzepka, who had come from Bowling Green to help his younger brother move home, survived a little longer: He was pronounced dead at the University of Kentucky Hospital. The Fayette County coroner's office said both died of head injuries.

UK police are investigating, and UK officials are saying little other than that the young men were wrestling and that there was alcohol in the dorm lounge area even though alcohol is banned on campus.

That was cause for concern for UK President Lee Todd. "We have one of the most stringent alcohol policies around, but we're going to be looking at the enforcement issue," he said yesterday.

Todd and his wife, Patsy, had been up since early morning. They walked among the roughly 150 students who gathered outside the dormitory by 3 a.m., beyond the police tape that marked off the scene.

Word had spread quickly across campus and students were tense, wondering whether it was a friend who had died.

This is finals week at UK, and Todd asked that faculty members "make reasonable accommodations" for grieving students. Grief counselors set up on the 23rd floor of the dorm within an hour of the deaths. By yesterday afternoon, they had moved to a nearby building.

Lindsey Galloway, a 19-year-old freshman who lives on the dorm's sixth floor, said she was in bed when she heard screaming outside. She went to the lounge down the hall to find out what was going on. Through the window she saw a young man crouched by the bodies below. "He was on the ground screaming, 'That's my brother, that's my brother.'" Galloway said she thought the man screaming was Justin Rzepka, Matthew's brother.

The young men on the third floor of Kirwan Tower said Pfetzer and Justin Rzepka were part of an unusually tight-knit group of dorm mates. The entire floor gathered regularly to play soccer or toss baseballs in the hallways -- and to wrestle, said Len Harper, a 19-year-old who lived next door to Justin Rzepka.

Harper said he saw the Rzepka brothers leave the dorm with Pfetzer about 11 p.m. Wednesday. He said he did not know where they were going.

UK officials would not shed any light on where they went. UK spokeswoman Mary Margaret Colliver said she couldn't comment about an investigation. She also had little to say about the window through which the two fell.

The quarter-inch-thick pane of annealed, or regular, glass was installed when Kirwan Tower was built in 1966. In 1973, federal codes mandated that new buildings use safety glass, the kind used in car windshields and in high-activity areas, such as lounges, said Tony O'Nan, the owner of a commercial glass company in Lexington.

"Tempered glass will withstand five times the impact of regular annealed glass," O'Nan said. "The likelihood of them falling out would have been nil or none had it been tempered."

UK has been installing safety glass in windows as they needed replacement. "I don't think we're worried about this from a safety issue," Colliver said.

The window through which the two students fell apparently was not the only one broken yesterday morning. Jeremy Arnold, an 18-year-old from Louisville who lives on the third floor of Kirwan Tower, said he saw a new crack in a second pane of glass in the lounge yesterday. That pane was replaced yesterday along with the one through which the young men fell. Colliver said she didn't know why the second pane was replaced.

Matthew Rzepka was once a UK student, but transferred to Western Kentucky University in 1999. A high school football star, he became the quarterback of the semi-pro Bowling Green Blitz football team when it formed last year. Coach Kaelin Byrd said Rzepka's skills helped guide the team to a Super Bowl victory in Zanesville, Ohio, last year.

Weston Vernon played football with Rzepka on both the Blitz team and at Greenwood High. He remembered his teammate as "loud, confident, excited always, very outgoing ... . He could have a conversation with the wall."

Students at UK said much the same about Pfetzer. His fraternity brothers at Kappa Sigma remembered how he turned up at both Christmas and Halloween parties wearing a pair of fire-engine red slacks and a green shirt, looking like a giant elf. Pfetzer joined the fraternity in the fall and was already chair of the fraternity's intramural sports teams.

Pfetzer graduated from Covington Catholic High School last year, the same school his father and older brother attended. A younger brother, Doug, is a junior there now.

"He was a good, above-average student. He was a gentle guy who loved people, and a good, wholesome citizen," said principal Jack Kennevan.

Pfetzer played soccer all four years there and was the prom king his senior year. The school held a prayer service yesterday afternoon.

Last night, Kappa Sigma held its own candlelight vigil to mourn. An estimated 200 students attended along with the Todds, UK officials and clergymen.

Barry Jamison, a Kappa Sigma who pledged the fraternity with Pfetzer, said the 6-foot tall man weighed about 190 pounds and loved to wrestle. "He was scrappy," said Jamison, who went to Panama City, Fla., with Pfetzer on spring break, and wrestled with him there.

"He was constant entertainment," Jamison said. "When he wrestled with people, he never got mad."

[Honeykiss1974]

Originally posted by hoosier
Thank goodness, this wasn't at a fraternity house.

Was this statemnt really necessary?

[Kevin]

He's just pointing out a double standard, that's all. The point is that residence halls have accidents, we have 'violations of rules/policy (whatever)'.

[BrandiDZ]

Just because he had a point doesn't make that statement ok. It's pretty insensitive.

[hoosier]

Originally posted by ktsnake
He's just pointing out a double standard, that's all. The point is that residence halls have accidents, we have 'violations of rules/policy (whatever)'.

I think the KTSnake has proven to be one of the smarter people on this forum.

[Dionysus]

Originally posted by hoosier


I think the KTSnake has proven to be one of the smarter people on this forum.

True, true. I too understood what you said.

[AchtungBaby80]

Originally posted by hoosier
Typically, the dean who hates fraternities would have:

I didn't know the dean hates fraternities. (I go to UK.)

[Honeykiss1974]

Originally posted by hoosier


I think the KTSnake has proven to be one of the smarter people on this forum.

Once again........

I understood perfectly what you posted. My point was that in regards to someone DYING, by adding comments like "well at least it didn't happen at XYZ fraternity's house" seems to trivialize their death or make it seem less important or newsworthy. Once again, two people have died! XYZ fraternity will still be here, but they are not.

Perhaps if this had been a story about a fight breaking out in the dorm, then I think that you comment might have been taken in the lightheartedness in which it was given.

Also, if you think that someone is not as "enlightened" as you because they take life and death a little more seriously, well, I am proud to be in that group.

[LeslieAGD]

Originally posted by AchtungBaby80


I didn't know the dean hates fraternities. (I go to UK.)

I believe he meant "a dean who hates fraternities would..." as opposed to "the dean, who hates fraternities, would..."

[Tom Earp]

Honeykiss, I do not think Hoosier was meaning or belittling the situation!

What he is saying that many times when something like this happens at a Greek Org. Chapter House, it becomes National publiicity and looks bad on all Greeks.

It is truely a shame when anyone dies and My thoughts and prayers go out to his Brothers and family!

We lose to many Greek Brothers/Sisters from stupid and inane things!

I think what Hoosier is pointing out that it can happen in the independet area of college life, or in the College houseing not just

In Greek Housing!

[bunner]

I know that nothing was really meant by what was written, but maybe word it differently next time. One of my sisters saw this and was bawling. Jeffery was one of her best friends. She couldn't even read the message b/c she was crying to hard at the title. Maybe just keep that in mind. Thanks.

[starang21]

can someone explain to me why it matters where this tragedy happened? seriously, everyone in here is an idiot. who cares what organization he was in? who cares whether or not your chapter is revoked or kicked off the campus? you've already suffered enough with one fo your friends dying. who cares if it was an accident of a violation? it doesnt matter, a young man died that night. all of you people don't have your priorities in the right place. thankfully? for what, a man dying? what does it matter if greeks are seen as bad? this man's life is far more valueable than your organizations reputation. all of you people are idiots.

[FuzzieAlum]

People have the right to comment on how the university handles tragedies! It doesn't make them "idiots." Now I agree that it may have been insensitive to put it that way, but he was commenting on the handling of their deaths and not the deaths themselves.

Folks, just because we disagree with other does not mean we have to slide into ad hominem attacks.

[dzrose93]

Originally posted by starang21
can someone explain to me why it matters where this tragedy happened? seriously, everyone in here is an idiot. who cares what organization he was in? who cares whether or not your chapter is revoked or kicked off the campus? you've already suffered enough with one fo your friends dying. who cares if it was an accident of a violation? it doesnt matter, a young man died that night. all of you people don't have your priorities in the right place. thankfully? for what, a man dying? what does it matter if greeks are seen as bad? this man's life is far more valueable than your organizations reputation. all of you people are idiots.

I agree that the heading chosen by the person who started this thread was probably not thought out very well. But please do not read into that title that anyone was happy about what happened, or that we are all a bunch of insensitive "idiots". I believe what hoosier meant by his title was that the media makes a very big deal out of tragedies that occur on Greek property, sometimes moreso than they would if the tragedy ocurred elsewhere. He was stating his opinion that if the young men had died at a Greek house instead of at campus housing that the incident would have been handled much differently by the administration and that it wouldn't have been considered to be what it was: a tragic accident. I honestly don't think hoosier or any other GCer was attempting to say that the young men's deaths weren't important. To me, ANY person's death is horrible and saddening, but particularly the death of young people who have so much life left to experience.

No one intended to make light of the fact that people died, or to imply that an organization's reputation is more important than a life. I know that the young men who were killed have family and loved ones who miss them terribly, and I don't think anyone on this chat board feels anything other than sorrow and sympathy for those who knew them. I understand that you are upset, but please don't categorize people who participate in this message board as a bunch of "idiots". That generalization is simply not appropriate.

[Dionysus]

Originally posted by starang21
all of you people are idiots.

Oh boy oh boy! John has a lot of banning to do this summer!