Looking for some help

[8of13]

Here at The University of North Alabama, we have had about half our chapter leave, either for other schools or for personal reasons. I was part of the last fall's pledge class, 13 initiated. This nearly doubled the chapter, but since have had many leave.

What i really wanted to know are what are some of the most effective rush tools, member activities, or anything else that really has helped to improve your chapters.

Any and all responses would be appreciated.

Daniel H.,
Theta Alpha - UNA

[Firehouse]

Daniel, you may feel as if you are alone but don't. You have brothers who will help you and your chapter.
There's a great story within the Fraternity about a chapter that had a problem very similar to yours. I'm sorry to say I don't recall whether it was the University of Kentucky or the University of Missouri, but it happened 80-90 years ago.
Chapters weren't huge like they are today and for one reason of another, no members of the chapter except one returned to school that fall. That one young sophomore Brother had no idea what to do, so he called the national office and spoke to Robert Adger Smythe.

Smythe liked what he heard from the young man. He said, "Go to the trunk where the chapter keeps it's initiation regalia and other valuables and you'll find a locked box. Open that box, and inside you'll find a supply of pledge pins. I want you to take those pins and go find as many other young men exactly like yourself as you can, and ask them to join you in Pi Kappa Alpha."

That's how the chapter was reborn and how they found success again.
It's not any more complicated than that. Go out and find as many men just like you as you can, and pledge them. Don't try to make it hard; just do it. It will be one of the great inspirational experiences of your life.

[Pike_Cardinal]

Firehouse, do you know where you heard or found this story?

[Firehouse]

It was a well-known story when I was on the National staff. I'll try to track it down - it may be written. Why?

[Pike_Cardinal]

Mainly because I think they would be words of inspiration to any Pike, especially with the weight they carry, being that of one of the greatest Pikes of all-time. Secondly, I think its the perfect answer for how we, the Kappa Zeta chapter, pledged 44 quality men, the second largest reported fall pike pledge class nationally.
If you could possibly track it down, that would be awesome. I couldn't find it in my copy of The Oak or any reference to it on the internet.

[Firehouse]

I found it!
I'll type the story here as it appears in the text of an article about the 1977 Distinguished Achievement Award winner Wick Moore (Kentucky '21). The entire piece appears in the September, 1977 issue of the Shield & Diamond. It's a very long article, but here is the story:

"I was initiated at Omega chapter in Lexington (Kentucky) in 1921"
(What was the chapter like when you were there?)
"Well, I was initiated as a freshman and when I came back about three weeks early in 1922 I was playing football [for Kentucky] and so I naturally went to the fraternity house to stay there. There was only one other member of the Omega chapter who came back and that was about a week before the university opened. This fellow whose name was Doc was the only other member there. We couldn't understand why the others didn't come back but later we learned the reason they hadn't. After all, 1922 was not too long after the end of World War I and I suppose some of the parents had economic problems.
The chapter rented a house on Limestone Street and I was just a greenhorn freshman, you see, and so was my friend. We were rather pround of being IIKAs and we knew we had to do some pledging but we didn't know where all the other members were and we didn't even know how to contact them.
The two of us couldn't run this house alone so I contacted an alumnus there in Lexington who was an older man and asked him what he thought. He said, 'Gosh I don't know. Why don't the two of you call up Robert Adger Smythe in Atlanta' [who was] at that time the heavyweight of the fraternity.
So, I called him. Doc and I had to dig down in our pockets and get the money to make the long distance call. I got on the phone and told him the problem. Because we had 30-40 members the year before when I was initiated, he was amazed that only two returned.
I said, 'I'm out here for football. I know a lot of good prospects and I think we could pledge them, but how do we go about it?"

Moore said that Smythe appointed him pro-tem SMC of Omega chapter on the spot. "I will put you in charge and you open the [chapter] strong box and I think you'll find all the pledge pins and everything you'll need. If you need anything else call me back. You go to it now, and save the chapter!"

Moore continued, "So that's exactly what we did. We filed the lock off the strongbox becasue we didn't have a key, and there was a box of pledge pins. Doc and I filled our pockets with pledge pins and we went out to pledge some IIKAs!"

(This is a very long article so I'll jump ahead)

"We had nothing to sell. The only thing we had to sell was myself and my friend, and the atmosphere and personality and background of the alumni [who] we had brought in. We were a great national fraternity and always one of the outstanding fraternities at Kentucky. We were going to rebuild the best fraternity at Kentucky and [the new pledges] were going to be part of that.
We were looking for leaders, for young men who were personable, who had the drive to get ahead and build things. We were looking for good athletes who were students and good students who were athletes. We were looknig for talented young men.
The long and the short of it is, tha 1922 pledge class became the 1923 leaders of the University of Kentucky. We had class presidents, we had football players, we had basketball players, presidents of classes, heads of this, heads of student council. You can look in the book, in the records, It's there, in the yearbook; you'll see.
And as a result of this, we had three Governors of Kentucky come out of this class. We had two or three Congressmen, a couple of Senators, heads of businesses all over the world, out of this class."

(skipping ahead through the long text...)

[Could you give one bit of advice to the presdient of a chapter today?]

"First, I'd have to know who I was talking to. If [he] was somebody I wouldn't have pledged or would not have liked as a fraternity brother, I doubt if I'd waste five minutes with him.
[But] I would say, 'Pick everybody you can like yourself, or as close to yourself as you can, who you like. I would say to duplicate yourself. Get all the twin brothers you can. And then, you've got an easy problem, or you've got no problem at all."

[Pike_Cardinal]

Wow, what an absolutely amazing story. Thanks so much for digging that up for me. I can't wait to share it with the chapter.