Category: Actives

Homecoming 2025: Iota’s Schedule of Events

It’s less than two weeks to Homecoming. Check out the full University schedule of events, register and make a plan today, or you might be stuck staying at the Motel 6.

Here are the Chapter-related activities to plan for (UPDATED 10.17):

Friday, October 24:

  • 6:00 PM onward: Informal Gatherings — the House will be open for friends and brothers to gather

Saturday, October 25:

  • 10:00 AM: Pre-game tailgating starts; breakfast tacos provided in the parking lot at the Georgetown ISD Athletic Complex
  • 12:00 PM (Noon): SU Pirates vs. Maryville College Scots, kickoff
  • 1:30 PM: Hamburgers on the Kappa Sigma House Patio
  • 4:00–6:00 PM: Kappa Sigma Open House
  • 4:30–5:15 PM: Informational meeting with Actives and Alumni Association
  • ~6:00 PM until gone: BBQ on the patio

AEKDB

Chapter Celestial, Active Chapter Grows

Greeting, Friends & Brothers:

UPDATE March 6, 2021: We regret the omission of Henry Furler from the list of those joining the Chapter Celestial.

The post provides a digest of news from the past few months.


Chapter Celestial

Since our last post about Brother Richard Kalmbach — who passed away in late September — we received news of two more brothers joining the Chapter Celestial.

Anton (Tony) Fraps IV passed away on October 24, 2020

Bob Rork, alumnus and former trustee passed away on December 29, 2020.

Henry Furler, a young brother from the Iota Class of Spring 2017.

Our condolences go out to family, friends, and brothers during this time of sorrow.

Active Chapter News

The actives welcomed ten young men into the chapter as part of the Spring ’21 Pledge Class.

Iota Chapter Spring Class of 2021

To kick-off the new year, the active chapter launched a campaign to fund house improvement projects — a nice compliment to deferred maintenance and upkeep supported by the House Corporation. Visit the GoFundMe page below to support the campaign.

Alumni Notes

Are you missing live music? Yeah, me too. Check out recent installments of Kevin McKinney’s Friday Freak-in on Facebook for the next best thing to being there.

That’s it for now. Stay warm and safe y’all.

AEKDB,

JG

SU Awards Iota Endowed Scholarships

The Iota Alumni Association is proud to announce that current active grand master, Dillon Betros, has been awarded both the Kappa Sigma Iota Endowed Scholarship and the Lori and Erik Harpst Endowed Scholarship.

Dillon is a Senior from Cameron Texas and majors in French.

The two endowed scholarships have enjoyed generous support from alumni and friends of the chapter. The Association sends a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has contributed to these funds since their inception.

The Kappa Sigma Iota Endowed Scholarship goes to deserving students with a financial need and helps cover tuition.

The Lori and Erik Harpst Endowed Scholarship goes to deserving students with a financial need and covers the cost of student housing — such as the rent paid to live in the fraternity house.

We invite you to make an end of year contribution to either or both of these funds through the Southwestern online portal.

To make a donation by mail, remit with specific instruction for either one to: Southwestern University, P.O. Box 770, Georgetown TX 78627-0770.

It’s not ALL work…

There’s quite a group gathering (and a fun one too) for the upcoming workday at the House.

Come join for all or part of the day. Here’s the schedule for Saturday, August 5th:

– 7:00a.m. Breakfast at Monument Cafe
– 8:00a.m. Workday start
– 10:30a.m. Dedicate and bury time capsule from the 125th / group photo
– 1:00p.m. Lunch at House (sandwiches)
– 5:30p.m. Dinner at House (hamburgers)
– 6:00p.m. Wiffle ball game in the yard
– 7:00pm. Jam session

Note: a list of goals for the day and helpful tools to bring will follow this post soon.

AEKDB

Floors In Focus For Summer Work Weekends, May 31, June 28

Preserving and protecting the parquet floor will be the focus for the first work weekend, beginning this Friday afternoon May 30 and concluding Sunday.

Brother Sparks has led this effort and will manage the work. Regarding the floors he writes, “This will be, and should be for all of us given proper future maintenance, the last major effort regarding this particular issue.”

It’s a big job. Come lend a hand in the set-up and prep or in the treating and varnishing as you can. All are welcome.

UPDATE: Alumni Weekend 2014 To Take Place April 5th

UPDATE: Planning your Alumni Weekend 2014

  • Saturday, April 5th
    • 8:30am: coffee and donuts
    • 10:30am:  active/alumni meeting
    • 11:30am: meet the Spring class
    • Noon-2pm: catered BBQ lunch
    • 2pm: softball (location: Round Rock Memorial Field)
    • 7pm: reservations for up to 45 at Walburg Restaurant
    • 10:30pm: back at the House
    • After that, it’s up to you…
  • Sunday, April 6th
    • 9am: coffee and donuts

Continue reading →

Pictures and News from Spring 2013 Alumni Weekend

Weekend highlights:

  • A great turnout this year. It was a big surprise.
  • Jeff Allen told the story of the first alumni weekend 40 years ago – way cool and worth retelling.

Chapter news:

  • Iota Chapter scholarship report ranks them number one among all fraternities and above the all men’s average. Great work actives!

House:

  • The maintenance fund will provide for a new hot water heater as well as minor up-keep and repairs.

The softball game:

  • Alumni 25 – Actives 5
  • Thanks the Spring Class of 2013 for their impartial call of the game.
  • Cort Greer played first base. And the alums still won 🙂

 

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Update: 125th Weekend Packages & Costs

Brothers,

I hope this letter finds you well on this October 12, 2011, the 125th birthday of The Iota Chapter of Kappa Sigma. We have a grand celebration planned for the weekend of November 4-6.

We are getting concerns and complaints that Iota’s Celebration is too expensive.

We are adding two categories to the registration to make it more affordable. There is no memorabilia included in either one. The alumni “Basic” is $85. The guest “Basic” is $75.

The new registration form has these additions. If you have already registered and have sent in your package and would like to change, let us know and we can do that.

Memorabilia will be for sale at the event on a first come first serve basis.

Our celebration is 3 weeks away. Southwestern will order food for the banquet depending on the numbers we give them. We will order our refreshments on the same numbers so help us out and don’t delay.

I hope this letter will help clarify any doubts and lead to a successful gathering of the brothers and their friends on November 4-6. Events like these come once every 25 years so call your worthless pledge brothers and make sure they will be there. Iota Chapter has a totally remodeled house just waiting for a celebration! Let’s give it one that will be remembered for years to come!

Happy Birthday Iota!

AEKDB

Erik Harpst

August 13th: Alumni/Active EC Retreat

We are going to hold the bi-annual EC retreat at 11 a.m. on 8/13 at the newly renovated house. Please let me know if you can attend via email or add a comment to this post. I’ve talked with the actives, and we should have nearly everyone.

We’ll have quite a few things to discuss. A rough agenda appears below. Let me know if you have any thing to add or remove.

House Updates
– Updates on renovations
– New House policies/rental agreement

125th Anniversary/Homecoming
– Dates and Info

Brotherhood Development
– Discussion

Please forward on to other alumni that would be interested in attending.

Thanks,

Tim

Join the Final Work Weekend – August 6th

from Alumni Adviser Tim Stapleton

FINAL WORK WEEKEND – Don’t miss your chance to leave a lasting (positive) impression on the on the house. Saturday, August 6th will be the next, and hopefully final, work weekend at the house. We still have a lot to do to ensure the house is ready for the new school year.

For those of you artsy folks, we have lot of paint prep work that needs to be done, but if the outdoors is more your thing, we have a lot of earthwork and gardening too. I’m sure we can find something up your alley!

Work will be going on all day, you can’t get there to early, and you can’t get there too late. Any time at all you can contribute will be greatly appreciated.

If you like working with your own tools, we can always use extra shovels, paint brushes, rollers, sand papers, blue painting tape, steel wool (various grades), water blaster or pressure washer, pruning tools, wire cutters, and strong backs. Be sure to label your tools before arrival.

There has already been a lot of volunteers who have already given a lot of their time and energy, it would be great to see you there.

Join Masters of Destruction Part 2, June 4-5

RSPV via Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169201776472278

What: Masters of Destruction (MOD) Weekend Part 2

Where: The House

When: Weekend of June 4th; sun-up to sun-down

Who: All actives and alumni are invited and encouraged to join the effort – that means you! Norwood Williams and Joe Abel are leading the effort.

How: Skills, sweat, tools, teamwork, and lots of fun along the way.

Why: The remaining tear work to be done includes: the head (another layer of sheetrock and flooring need to be removed), flooring in the kitchen needs to be removed, the carpet and possibly the subfloor in the old house mothers room needs to be removed,and a new deck put down. We need to do general ground works, etc.

Read Joe Abel’s report of MOD Part 1 here.

So please if you can come, come!

Joe Abel’s Update and Next Steps on House Renovation

Brothers,

We have started work on the Chapter house that was built in 1961.

Last weekend on May 21st we tore out the head (major leaks, and plumbing problems}; we also tore out the tile and some of the cabinets from the kitchen. We cleaned the grounds, chunked old couches, tore up sheetrock, old walls, and discovered more problems but none of them are structural. The old house is solid! Unbelievable!

We have a written contract with a contractor, reputable and on the spot. We’re redoing the head, the kitchen, replacing the North and South double doors, repairing all exterior doors upstairs and downstairs, fixing or replacing all the upstairs interior doors. We are putting new tile down with new sub flooring in the head and the kitchen. Repairing the fire suppressant system, and re-finishing the parquet floors.

We are having another work weekend on the 4th of June, all alumni and current Sigs are invited to come and help. The things we need to do is more work in the head (another layer of sheetrock and flooring need to be removed), flooring in the kitchen needs to be removed, the carpet and possibly the subfloor in the old house mothers room needs to be removed, and a new deck put down. We need to do general ground works, etc.
So please if you can come, come.

[For questions] Contact Norwood Williams, he is the project manager for the remodel for the alumnus and the contractor Joe Gilbreth. I think we have an opportunity to get the young guys involved and maybe get some of their input and help during the project. We want to get this thing done by August 1st to have it ready for the fall semester and the 125th. We will have a painting weekend to do sometime in July when the contractor finishes the major work.

AEKDB

Joe Abel

Graduating Seniors and New Brothers

Let’s all welcome the Spring Pledge Class of 2011 as our newest initiates: Blake Carrera, Julius Young, Phillip Smith, Austin Smart, John Barfield, Chaz Sanders, Drew Snyder, Justin Gonzales

They’ll have a their work cut out for them replacing this lot…

Our Newly Graduated Seniors: John Walmsely, Daniel Knoll, Dario Bocanegra, Andrew Ivy, Mike Sullivan, Zachary Carr, Jack Frazee, Brandon Ramirez, John (Johnny B) Burton, Ben Atkins, Lance Turri, David Shinpaugh, Sam Allen, and Quinten Daniel…

Congratulations to you all!

Link: Commencement photos on Southwestern.edu