Zeta Chi and Phi Delta Pi

In the fall of 1948, a group of men from North Hall on Ball State Teachers College campus were working together to get one of their friends, Dale Kendrick, and his slate elected to the student government.  Of the five slates, Kendrick's "Schmoo" party was the only non-Greek slate to be running for sophomore class officers.  To further promote themselves, Kendrick's slate held the "Schmoo Parade" which was the first ever political demonstration to be held on Ball State's campus.

The party won the election, and through the election process, sixteen men became close friends.  Most of these men lived in the North hall, a converted Navy barracks which had been moved to Ball State Teachers College (BSTC) campus following World War II to provide housing for the large number of veterans returning from military service.  This was a diverse group of men that did not fit the mold of any other organization on campus, so the men decided to form their own local fraternity.  They submitted their request to the dean of boys, Dr. Kenneth Collier.  Approval was easily obtained, so the men wrote a constitution and bylaws, and had decided to call themselves Zeta Chi.  Later, the men discovered that Zeta Chi might have been the name of a women's honorary physical education sorority somewhere in New England.  "This didn't bother us because of our size, and because few others knew about this," Bill Mathews said.  The fraternity colors of blue and white were chosen, and Dale Kendrick, an art major, was charged with designing a pin and its symbolism.  The pin was made with 18 karat gold, with three rubies, one for each faculty sponsor of the fraternity, and sixteen pearls for each of the founding members.  After the university recognized them, Zeta Chi participated in many other campus events.  They sponsored their first all-campus dance on January 14, 1949 called the "Button and Bows" dance.  Probably the biggest achievement of this newly formed fraternity was going from last to first in the Spring Sing competition.  According to Dale Kendrick:

"Our parents came miles for this event!  Zeta Chi was last or near last on the program, and we were all outside in cold weather and drizzle.  We came in and BOMBED with croaking voices.  We were all OFF KEY, and the audience just loved it.  Zeta Chi was mortified!  We slunk out of the hall like drowned rats.  At our next meeting we pledged "From Last to First" next year and I do believe we did just that." (Kendrick 1996)

After only a little more than a year of existence, the men of Zeta Chi began to set their sights on becoming affiliated with a national fraternity.  Dr. John Emens, President of Ball State, was an alumnus from the Phi Delta Pi fraternity at Michigan Normal in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  He was a friend of Dale Kendrick and he wanted the Zeta Chi's to become part of his national fraternity. Since only a couple of fraternities at Ball State were affiliated with a national fraternity, joining a national fraternity would give greater prestige to the men in Zeta Chi, and make them a more legitimate organization in the eyes of everyone in and around campus.

Phi Delta Pi had its beginnings in 1892 when a group of men at the Michigan Normal College founded the Washingtonian Toastmaster's Club.  In 1899 the club was reorganized as a Greek letter organization.  In 1901, the beta chapter was founded at Michigan Central in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, and in 1925, the gamma chapter was founded at Colorado State Teachers College in Greely, Colorado.  Phi Delta Pi had a close association with teacher's colleges, and was quite interested in making the Zeta Chi's into the Delta Chapter of Phi Delta Pi.  Correspondence between the men of Zeta Chi and the Phi Delta Pi chapter at Ypsilanti began, and then a group of four Zeta Chi's went to Michigan Normal to become acquainted with the chapter.  Once the members of Zeta Chi agreed to affiliate with the Phi Delt national fraternity and permission was granted by the administration, an initiation date for February 8, 1950 was set to install the Delta chapter.  Twenty Zeta Chi's were initiated into Phi Delta Pi, and there was a rush for other fraternities at Ball State to "go national".

In two short years, Phi Delta Pi grew to nearly 50 men and there was a great need to centralize the fraternity’s activities.  After months of planning and negotiating, a lease was signed on December 2, 1952 for the house at 526 North Martin Avenue.  Phi Delta Pi became the second Ball State fraternity, after Phi Sigma Epsilon, to obtain a fraternity house.

The house held twenty men who slept in the upstairs, and studied in study rooms on the ground floor.  There was also a recreation room with a Ping-Pong table.  The house was furnished with old bunk beds from Ball State and used furniture from many of the brothers' homes.  It was much cheaper to live in the house than in the residence halls.  The Phi Delts used the left over money to start a house fund.  With this house fund, the members hoped to buy a house of their own.

During this same time period, the men of the Phi Delt chapter at Ball State Teachers College were becoming dissatisfied with the Phi Delta Pi national fraternity.  Many of the other local fraternities on campus were affiliating with much larger national fraternities.  Phi Delta Pi only had four chapters, one of which was inactive.  The fraternity voted to disaffiliate with the Phi Delt national fraternity in the spring of 1952, returning Phi Delta Pi at Ball State to a local fraternity status.  This enabled the local chapter to open communications with many other national fraternities.  While examining whether or not to join Sigma Nu, it came to the Phi Delts' attention that an 80 year-old judge in Chicago, with the veto power to reject a new chapter, opposed the idea of having a Sigma Nu chapter at any teachers college.  After encouragement from the Sigma Nu national office to wait a while before applying again, the Phi Delts decided to look elsewhere.

There used to be a Sigma Phi Epsilon colony on Ball State's campus, yet it could not gain enough members to sustain its existence. Some of those members had pledged Phi Delta Pi, so the decision was made to consider affiliating with the Sigma Phi Epsilon national fraternity.  After a series of ballots, Sigma Phi Epsilon was the unanimous choice.

Communications between the local Phi Delt chapter and the Sig Ep national fraternity were mostly accomplished by mail.  As work progressed, representatives from the national headquarters were sent to talk to the chapter.  The Phi Delts sent their formal petition to SigEp headquarters in October of 1952, with forty members signing it.  The chapter was formally accepted to become the Indiana Gamma chapter (the third chapter in Indiana, the 133rd chapter in the United States) and the installation date was set for February 21, 1953.  An entire weekend of events was planned centering around the installation.  These events included the initiations into the fraternity, a banquet at the Student Center, a dance, and an all campus reception at the fraternity house.

Since its beginnings in 1948, the fraternity known as Zeta Chi, Phi Delta Pi, and now Sigma Phi Epsilon grew from the 16 men in North Hall to tripling its membership at the house on Martin Street. The Sig Ep chapter had quickly becoming one of the strongest fraternities on campus, excelling in many different aspects of campus life.

The Chapter House of Indiana Gamma

A fraternity house is the most visible sign of the organization on a university campus.  It is the center of events for many of the undergraduate and alumni activities.  A walk through the fraternity house can bring back many found memories of years past to alumni.  The house remains a constant for everyone who associates themselves with this fraternity. Attitudes and personalities of the men may change over time, yet the connection to the fraternity is preserved by the physical structure of the house and the traditions and memories associated with it.

The Phi Delts bought the house at 526 North Martin Street on December 8, 1952 before affiliating with Sigma Phi Epsilon.  The house could hold up to twenty men and was the center for all the fraternity's activities.  With the chapter growing at a rapid rate, it was time to buy a larger house. After some negotiations, the chapter purchased a new home at 1431 West Riverside Ave in 1955.  This new home could hold forty men, most of whom slept in a cold dorm in the garage.  The beds were stacked three high, sleeping thirty-four men.  The house also included an officer's suite, where the six executive officers lived.

A tradition started in 1956 at Indiana Gamma was that of having a housemother.  The first house mom was Mary Hunt who served from 1956 to 1963.  After her death, the formal lounge in the newly renovated house was dedicated to Mary Hunt in recognition of her years of service.  Lucille Roe was house mom for only one year, and in 1964 Martha Kinder became the new housemother.  Martha Kinder was the first house mom to live in the house.  Until Mom Kinder moved into the house, men from the chapter would drive and pick the house mom up from her home and she would stay at the fraternity house from around 10 a.m. to sometime in the evening after dinner. When she died on June 9, 1983, longtime cook, Betty "Woo Babe" Woods stepped into her position.  The housemother's suite, where Mom Kinder lived for nearly twenty years, was dedicated in her memory with a plaque and a portrait painted by undergraduate member Frank Locklear (uncle of television/movie actress Heather Locklear).  When Mom Woods died in July of 1985, Margaret "Madge" Foster was chosen by the undergraduate chapter to become the new housemother in 1986.

The role of the housemother had many different facets.  They had to advise the undergraduate officers if problems arose with the kitchen and meal planning, chaperon events when females were invited, counsel members when they wanted to talk to her about problems, and have the ability to put up with the day to day living habits of fraternity men.  Things such as living above the house jukebox and listening to music at 2 or 3 a.m. may have been part of the reason that Lucille Roe only lasted a year as house mom.

Within seven years the chapter had outgrown the house, so an expansion and house development committee was established to developed to begin plans for improving the house.  The expansion committee submitted its ideas, sketches, and floor plans to the alumni board on February 1, 1960.  The committee's plans included an estimated $75,000 addition and a $30,000 renovation of the house.  The new addition and renovation would allow the house to accommodate sixty-five men sleeping in cold dorms, with twelve 3-4-man study rooms.  Other rooms to be added were a housemother's suite, library, television room, exercise room, and an acoustically tiled room to practice music.  This would be the first and the largest expansion project for a fraternity house at Ball State.  Work began in the summer of 1963, however, due to some delays getting building permits, members returning to school in the fall were left without a place to live.  Nearly forty members moved into the top floor of the Delaware Hotel in downtown Muncie and lived there until construction was completed.  Members were allowed to move into the finished house during January of 1964.

The expansion allowed for meals to be served for the entire fraternity every night.  Joseph Scagnoli describes the formal dinners:

"Mom Hunt would sit at the head table with the officers, and two pledges were required to eat dinner at each table with the actives. Once a week a senior would teach the pledges proper table etiquette for a formal dinner.  Everyone had to wear a tie and jacket, but they could wear jeans and tennis shoes if they wanted."

While heading up a study of higher education in South Vietnam, Dr. James Albertson died in a plane crash on March 24, 1967.  Dr. Albertson was a SigEp at Colorado State College and chapter counselor for Indiana Gamma between 1956-1962.  He was the first executive assistant to Dr. Emens at Ball State Teachers College.  He later became president of Wisconsin State University at Stevens Point.  To honor his memory, the brothers of Indiana Gamma dedicated the new library with a plaque bearing his picture and memorial.

After nearly thirty years of use and abuse, the house was in desperate need of another renovation.  Discussion about a renovation began during 1991.  It was an uphill battle for those alumni who wanted the house renovated.  According to Dan VanTreese, chapter advisor:

"There were at least two members of the alumni board who felt that we would be wasting our money on renovating the house.  They believed that the undergraduate members would continue to destroy the house, punching holes in the walls, etc.  It was getting so bad that if the Health Department were to come out and inspect the house they would probably condemn the property.  We created a committee who presented what they thought should be done to the house.  I encouraged them to stay for the alumni board meeting, knowing that every alum there had a vote.  I basically stacked the vote in favor of the renovation, but I had to do what I thought was best for the house."

Work began in 1991 and was soon completed in the spring of 1992.  Some of the major changes included: changing the kitchen into a self-service facility where members could cook for themselves, moving the TV lounge from the downstairs to what used to be the dining room of the house, and creating a pool room in the old TV Lounge.  A rededication ceremony was set for the following Homecoming as a means to bring back a large number of alumni to see the newly renovated house.  During the informal ceremony, alumni and undergraduates described their fondest memories of their years in the fraternity.  The event culminated when Dan VanTreese unveiled the newly framed Charter.  According to VanTreese, an undergraduate member stole the Charter during the 1970's.  The unknown member believed that the fraternity did not deserve to have the document, but when he heard news of the 1992 house cleaning and the positive direction the fraternity was now taking, he mailed the Charter to the SigEp national headquarters with the instructions to send it to the chapter.  When VanTreese obtained the tattered piece of sheepskin, he framed it and presented it with much joy to the chapter.

The house is always changing and improving to meet the needs of the undergraduate members.  The Clifford T. Loder Memorial Library was completed and dedicated on March 16, 1996.  The attic of the old part of the house, commonly referred to as "the hole", was completely renovated.  A large group of alumni and undergraduate members attended the dedication ceremony.  Loder's surviving family, wife Carol and son T.C., were flown from Florida to attend the ceremony also.  The ceremony was informal and the seriousness was tempered with humorous memories of Cliff, who died of a heart attack in 1981.

With the recent passing of Tom Shoppell during April of 1998, many of his close friends wanted to honor him by raising money to renovate the television lounge of the fraternity house and naming it in his honor.  Tom Shoppell dedicated forty years of his life to the fraternity, co-founding the Indiana Gamma Old Farts Club and as a charter board member of the Martin-Riverside Society.  Members raised over $11,000 to repair and refurnish the television lounge.

* The preceding is an excerpt from Brian Hancock's ('96) thesis for Ball State University's Honors College used with permission. Information for this project was gathered from Ball State yearbooks (The Orient 1949-1995) and the Ball State News, Indiana Gamma Newsletters and Alumni Board minutes, and most importantly, personal interviews and letters from the following alumni (listed alphabetically): Ramon Avila '77, Jim Banta '71, Dave Beer '59, Ralph Cook '56, Myron Dickerson '56, Paul Gast '63, Lewie Gillespie '64, Frank Hancock '70, Chuck Harris '94, Bill Hofman '52, Roger Holder '71, Dale Kendrick '52, Brendan Kerrigan '81, Pat Lemieux '92, Dan Mallas, Maurice Mann, Bill Mathews '64, Don McClurg '53, Scott McConville '72, Matt McQuinn '97, Chris Muckridge '93, Stan Nash '54, Don Park '61, Don Pauley '55, Ted Quick '74, Joe Scagnoli '64, Ed Shipley '68, Al Smith '87, Kirk Tebo '97, Dan Van Treese '67, Dan Ward '95, and Ned Yaney '54.