This exists in one typewritten copy in the "Springmann Administration" file and bears the title HISTORY OF KAPPA SIGMA CHAPTER PHI MU ALPHA SINFONIA From March 21, 1968 to March 21, 1969. [--Patrick Feaster]

Introduction

        In writing this history I must decide what material I want to include and how to arrange them--in order to keep my words from flowing out chaotically. I decided to include only events happening during the 365 days following my induction as historian. The material will be restricted to events pertaining to the fraternity as a body as recorded in my notebook. In order to keep this material intelligible, I am going to subsume it under categories of the various standing committees. I don't want to advocate burocracy [sic]- -it is just a convenient way to arrange things. Additional material may be found in the archives, scrapbook or by [sic, "my"] notebook.

Music--the logical place to begin

        In the beginning Tom Schmidt was music chairman--quite a good place to begin. Besides being the beginning it was also the Week of Challenge. Tom Palozolo (a friend of Jeff Daehn from Chicago) showed two of his films "O" and "The Theorist's Room" and Dave Gouker playing horn, Dave Schack on temple blocks and celeste and Tom Schmidt playing piano played a planned improvisation congruent to the films. The Great Hall was packed for this demonstration of the new super art--probably the biggest audience we'll ever have. We had gotten to know Palozolo and Grant Bulganin, another Week of Challenge speaker, earlier at a dinner at the house. And it was the evening and the morning of the 21st day of March.

        At that time we were also preparing for our big spring concert. The chorus was working on songs by Bartok and on May 13 began practicing the last of Donazetti's "Lucia de Lammermore" with Tom Janson and Brother McCall. (Kroeger on piano) The brass quintet which had more or less been formed that year, Paul Wolf being the prime mover in its formation, was also preparing for the recital and doing a number of other things, practicing a peice [sic] by Obata, some Arthur Harris, Gabrielli, and a number of 16th and 17th century motets. They did an improvisation at the lenten vespers service on the 18th of May. June 2 was the date of Al Julseth's Renaissance and Baroque concert in which the quintet also played. Gouker, Wolf, Stohs, Hannewald, and Edwards were members of the quintet.

        During this year, our composer in residence, Tom Janson, had not been inactive either as he was working on a piano sonata and a cycle of songs for soprano (Carol Cook) and woodwind quintet on Japanese haiku.

        May 17 was the highpoint of many of our musical efforts that spring. In the early evening over an excellent meal cooked by Vera and her two sisters we got to meet Al Adams, the executive secretary and our governor Bob Marsh, both of whom had been invited to the concert on Eich's suggestion and surprisingly enough accepted. After dinner Adams gave a short speech about how nervous he hot [sic, "got"] every time he recieved [sic] a letter from Kappa Sigma. And then--the concert--maybe one of our best. One of our biggest reasons for being pleased was that Janson's peice [sic] (that won him $100 and first place in an Indiana composing contest) came off exceedingly well. After the concert Marsh and Adams hung around a while to discuss with leading Sinfonians before returning to Lembke Inn.

        There were quite a number of other less noted events that spring. A rash of piano and organ recitals by Tom Schmidt (and Beethoven's third piano concerto played on a week's notice). Prante's historical recital with Suzy Zorn (Bill promised that if 33 brothers showed up he would go to the formal with Miss Zorn. Only 27 did show up, but he went anyway.) Also: Mozart's #2 with Gouker playing horn, a first place for Schmidt and a second place for Prante in the Indiana State Music Contest on April 27, the "Quoniam" from Bach's b minor mass done by Gouker Schack and Janson in the chapel on May 12, and much else.

        Bill Prante was the music chairman for the enitre 67-68 year. His administration had a definate [sic] aura of experimentation and innovation. The "Experiment in Music" form [sic, "from"] the previous semester was mainly his idea. The Palozolo concert, exploring the relation between the visual and audio arts, the appearance of music written by one of the brothers, Mangle Wurzels and Jangel Wurzels were all things of the Prante tradition. In his farewell address on April 29 Prante said that he would like to see a more profrssional [sic] attitude toward music, informal choir rehearsals, and a system of teaching music to the less musical brothers.

        Dave Schack, being Prante's assistant, was chosen music chairman b y [sic] the new executive board. He began his job in earnest in the fall of '68. There was some question already in spring as to who should be the new chorus director--there were many qualified men. It was decided that Schack was to appoint the director (with the approval of the board) and Schack, with his usual insight, chose himself, with the added stipulation that there were to be four sectional directors: Janson, Daehn, Brown, and Schack. The four sections often met separatedly for parts of the song practice, although this custom fell into disuse toward the end of the year. Schack also instituted a new place for song practice--Kinsey Hall, the previous locus having been the house--finally in the spring we decided to have practice at the AMB which combined the desirable features of the house and Kinsey.

        One of the features of the Schack administration has been in increased involvement of individual brothers or small groups of brothers in more diverse activities. The brass quintet with Rick Overgaard replacing Hannewald was quite active. They added to chapel services with their music: Locke, Corelli, Purcell, Pezel, Bach, etc. Their art was not limited to the sacred. They played such profane things as "Camptown Races" at the homecoming dinner on Oct. 18, Tom Janson's own "Stately Plump Buck Mulligan" at his concert, played things at various gatherings of local Republicans, contributed to our big workshop weekend extravaganza, and even organized a pep band for a pre football game ralley [sic]. Perhaps their finest hour was the time they spent working under Ehemann, the famous German director, for the Church Music Seminar. Unfortunately, the flu prevented them from ever playing. These fellows surely are most serious musicians.

        In reviewing musical accomplishments of the year, I certainly cannot leave out Hahn and Stohs. Phil singlehandedly and at his own initiative arganized [sic] a highly successful trip to Evanston to hear the New York Pro Musica. Earlier in the year he had been interested in sponsoring busses into Chicago in order to enrich the cultural possibilities of V.U.--we considered seeing a Verdi opera, Finnian's Rainbow, or a pop concert. None of these panned out, however, and Hahn saw his chance when the Pro Musica concert was announced at the fall workshop. He talked to Dean Baepler and got CC to underwrite two busses. In the end 103 people from VU attended what had to be one of the most unique concerts I have ever seen. Stoh's bag was drum corps (he is a member of one during the summer) and for him advancing the cause of music in America meant trying to drum up enough support to hire the St. Pat's Drum Corps from Milwaukee to play at a football game. He worked with Ron Koepke from the UB, soliciting money from fraternities, sororities, the athletic department, etc. Thanks to his efforts, a drum corps was heard at VU. The zeal of these two brothers is indeed an inspiration.

        And Phi Mu Alpha was beginning to let itself be known to the people out there. I already mentioned the brass quintet's performances. The male quartet, which made its public debut the year before, also entertained the Republicans singing "Stay in the Middle of the Road" and "Ainch mytee sorry LBJ" Janson, Schneeweiss, Esala and Springman are members of this infamous bunch. The Christmas season saw the usual outings to sing carols at various places (Vera's, O.P.'s, Hannewa[l]d's, and Evergreen Nursing Home). The Locus Street Community Center was also a locus for advancing the cause of music. Schneeweiss tried to get brothers to play their instruments for the nursery school kids in order to expose them to real music.

        Although there [are] a number of other individual efforts I could mention, I must be a bit laconic and confine myself to Tom Janson's recital. This was indeed a highpoint for the fraternity as we were able to tune in on Janson's spirit. The concert, held on Dec. 8, was heard by one of the biggest crowds of brothers ever assembled under one roof. This concert meant an especially [sic] lot to many of us--we had seen many of the works through their conception and birth. Dave Schack played the Sonata and the brass quintet played "Stately Plump..."

        Fraternity music may have declined a bit as a result of the rise of interest in individual music. But this is not to say the chorus was totally inactive. Beginning the year with a ragtag version of "Rapple Te Rouch", our old standby at a "Hawai[i]an Party" at the house put on by SAI we went on to bigger and better things: "Motherless Child," "Rocka My Soul," and "Deep River," all of which we performed at our concert. We also worked on Dan Pinkham's "Te Deum" with Resch and Stohs and Schenk. All four of these pieces were performed at the workshop.

        Early in the second semester interest in music began to decline. The chorus was doing two pieces it was not particularly fond of: "Super Flumina" and "Songs of Praise" by Alice Parker. The Locust Street projects seemed less successful. The quintet was quiet for a long time. In the middle of this slump we began to hear some things about a popular music concert. Dave Gouker, new music editor of the Torch and music chairman to be, was the originator of this novel idea. A brass band was to be formed, a barber shop quartet, a folk group perhaps. These vague mumblings started to become a reality when the chorus began working on "Vava la More" [sic!] and "Gigi" and Gouker began compiling his 76 trombones. There did seem to be some increase in spirit.

Kappa Sigma and the Rest of the Fraternity--excuse the departure

        The interest in national affairs has its roots in the provi[n]ce 49 workshop at Ball State in the fall of '68, where the voice of "Ed Eich, Kappa Sigma" made itself heard quite a bit. It was there that we put in our bid for the '69 workshop and by some struck [sic, "stroke"] of luch [sic, "luck"], the brothers of province 49 decided to have their next workshop at Valpo. It was at this workshop that we began to notice that Kappa Sigma was somewhat different from other chapters.

        In the spring of '69 our first real contacts with national were established. Ed Eich thought it might be a good idea to invite governor Bob Marsh and executive secretary Al Adams to our spring recital. The two gentlemen accepted the offer and the big recital-dinner was held on May 17 as described earlier.

        The following fall found us involved in working through a new set of by laws. As a result of long haggling over various articles, we bagan [sic] to realize some of the inadequacices of national by alws [sic] especially in the area of rushing. Steve Helmreich had been circulating a petition during the previous year to bring up a motion at the next national convention to change the vote needed to balckball [sic] a pledge from five brothers to 20%. The ritual also came under sharp criticism. Some brothers were opposed to it on religious grounds. Most, however, felt it to be irrelevant and ridiculous. Dave Gouker, the new vice president in an attempt to make the ritual less offensive cut out a number of boring or controversial sections. It was also felt that Kappa Sigma was too far removed from most of the chapters in province 39 to be an effective participant in province affairs, therefore, we requested that we be transferred to province 4 which includes most of the chapters in the Chicago land area.

        Marsh met with us again on Oct 2 in order to "give us a clean bill of health for our transfer to province 4." Previous to his visit Gouker had circulated a petition urging that if any radical changes were forced upon us we would withdraw from national. There was one big change which came out of thi[s] conference. Marsh said that national was taking the hard line on the ritual. Any chapter that didn't perform it in its entirety would be considered fair game for expulsion. He also let on that there was a good possibility that our ritual this fall might be inspected. Another big question that had just recently come up was what does national really do for us (after all, we pay $2.00 per brother). Marsh enumerated a few things: some connection with other musical people, insurance, loans, machines that could compile lists of brothers and job opportunities etc. A few brothers were not satisfied.

        At this time we imagine that Al Adams was getting fairly nervous about Kappa Sigma. He received a rather sarcastic letter from alpha rho chapter in South Carolina about "brotherhood in action" being right under his nose in Valparaiso. This was initiated when Ed Eich answered a letter from this new chapter requesting information about housing and finance. Anders, the treasurer, also sent a poison pen letter to Adams saying in effect that it was none of his business what the state of our treasury was.

        Some of the brothers were in the mood for a fight when the province workshop rolled around and essentially that is what happened. Dave Gouker and his committee had been fastidiously planning the affair since the spring before--so it was well organized. On Sat. Nov. 9, a busload of brothers from Evansville arrived here at 10:30 amid flying banners etc. After eating a light lunch and watching a football game, they returned to the house for an ofternoon [sic] of piano playing and discussion. Topics that were dwelt upon were: the value of a house and finances. Then came one of Clifford's famous light dinners and our concert. The visiting brothers were all duely [sic] impressed with the concert which included our three spirituals and the Pinkham "Te Deum", numbers by the brass quintet (Gabrielli, a Bach Contrapunctus, and a peice [sic] by Arthur Harris), and Bach's "Quoniam" done by Janson Schack and Gouker-- "Music The Poor Man's Parnassus." A keg party then took place back at the house[.] The next morning after Eucharist in which Janson's propers were used, Vera and her sister really put out the old feed bag: turkey with dressing etc. etc., a mean [meal?] you couldn't duplicate anywhere. At this time there were 52 people present. Up to this point things had been fairly pleasant, but at the meeting which followed, a number of the differences came out. After calling the meeting to order, Marsh dwelt for a while on a number of insignificant topics. Gouker had scheduled a ritual discussion next in which he, Pleuss, and Esala took part. The main issue involved was that the present ritual did not reflect what actually went on in the fraternity. A number of rather heated discussions followed:

Ritual: What you get from the ritual is just what you put into it. The ritual itself is just a tradition, hence the details are fairly unimportant. The spiritual and symbolic content is much more important. [..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .] we are a professional music fraternity and music ought to be the main part of our life and our god at the moment when we take part in the ritual. A number of people were uncomfortable about these sayings, feeling that [..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..] was not the description of their situation. It was emphasized that there should be much preparation for the ritual-- pledges should be prepared for all of this "vomitry" and brothers should be prepared to put on a good [..... ..... .] production. Following this discussion, Gouker moved that the NDRA be recommended to change the word "M[..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .] The only chapter voting for this motion was Kappa Sigma.

Rush: Brothers at this meeting talked about the advantages of having a house for rushing. Some thought however, that a house may tend to diminish the emphasis on music. Here we found out that only three or four other chapters had houses.

Pledges: There was quite a big hassle here. Some advocated the "worm" policy: making a pledge feel lowly, subjecting him to all manner of humiliating proceedures [sic], in order to build pledge class unity, and make pledges feel a part of the fraternity. Most of the brothers from Kappa Sigma advocated a less severe policy: the pledges were made to feel more equal with the actives, the emphasis being put on creativity.

        Following this, the meeting adjourned. It seemed that one thing that came out of this meeting was a lot of division. The rest of the chapters seemed to doubt our musical prowess and I sensed a lot of hostility when we wone [sic] the province award. The constant emphasis on the difference between Kappa Sigma and the others, mostly played up by our own brothers, greatly increased their alienation as did the disastrous vote on Gouker's motion. Luckily no one lost their temper.

        The week before this about 15 brothers had gone to the province four workshop in DeKalb. We were warmly welcomed by Dr. Loessle, our new province governor. After being shown around the NIU campus we ate dinner at the student union and had our meeting. The meeting was relatively tame. Epsilon chapter from Northwestern won the province award. Loessle explained a number of the activities they were involved with, one especially exciting, a plan for bussing Wouth [sic, "South"] Side youngsters to Northwestern for a Saturday afternoon of group and individual music lessons. Their president also put in a plug for their latest Price Doyle Memorial Concert, a performance of the New York Pro Musica. The proceeds of the concert are going to be used to establish a scholarship fund. The only other item of business that had to be discussed was communications between chapters. Someone suggested the idea of a province newsletter, Rider suggested that Kappa Sigma be responsible for collecting articles and putting out such a newsletter. And so it was. The chapters in province four seemed much more amenable to our own style of life than province 39 had been.

        Just a note about the fate of the newsletter--Gouker, who was chosen as the editor of the paper put out one issue in the spring. It was composed mostly of articles by brothers from Kappa Sigma. Only one other chapter Mu Pi responded to Gouker's entreaty to send news. After this first issue, only one other one was put out, after the end of the spring term, and that one was composed entirely of articles written by our own brothers. The main reason that it ceased to exist was lack of response from other chapters.

By Laws -- the means to the end

        One of the great accomplishments of this year was the passing of a complete set of by alws [sic] and no history of the year would be complete without an account of their passage.

        Stechholz had been put in charge of the by law committee in the spring. he and his valiant committee, Helmreich and Rider, worked diligently to formulate an equitable set of rules. They first presented them to the brothers on Sept 16. The old by laws (nobody quite knew what they were) had to be annuled first. The following is a summary of some of the discussion that went on:

        Article I establishment: passed immediately. One of the implications of this article that was discussed a bit was that it made national by alws [sic] part of our own.

        Article II elections: passed immediately.

        Article III officers: The main issue involved the use of the fine system by officers.

        Article VIII fines: There are many moral issues involved here, the most common objection being Helmreich's--the fine system deprives brothers of their autonomy. There should be no reason why we should need a fine system. Then there is the technical problem of whether it works or not. Some say that people never pay fines anyway. Others say they need a fine system to compell them to do their duties. Eventually the article was passed, but as a sort of experiment, it was suspended for a week following the next workshop. Since it was generally agreed that the week during which fines were suspended was a week of chaos, the brothers peacefully returned to fines. Helmreich later, in protest of this, made a special motion that he be exempt form [sic] fines. It was defeated.

        Meal Plan Co-Op: The details of this article were worked out in a special meeting of the co-op on Oct. 2. One of the main issues here was the relationship between the meal plan and the chapter. The meal plan uses the electricity, gas and kitchen space of the corporation, yet meal plan affairs are the exclusive business of brothers on the meal plan. It was finally decided that the meal plan be autonomous: it is to have its own books and bank account, any decisions pertinent to the plan be decided by a specail [sic] meeting of the co-op. Fines levied by the co-op however would go to the chapter treasury. Some discussion ensued about what would be done with excess monies at the end of the year since this very problem had to be faced last spring. The article was adopted as presented by the co-op.

        Invitations and Pledging: Some concern here was shown about the grade point average needed to pledge. The most liberal settlement we could come up with was a one point average either cumulatively or from the previous semester. Steve Helmreich made another amendment, changing the number of people needed to blackball a rushee to 20% rather than five brothers. The main argument in support of this was that as the fraternity grew in size, the number needed to blackball should also grow in size. Others felt that the fraternity should be more selective, and that we couldn't afford to grow in size much. The article was finally passed when the rule requiring a 2/3 majority was momentarily annulled.

        Seniority System: This article was purposely made vague. Helmreich wanted to amend it to read that all committee heads have priority and furthermore that as far as house assignments are concerned, people are urged to have their housing contracts in on time.

        These by laws were finished up on Jan. 6. Rider wrote the preamble in order to define the status of the alws [sic]. He wrote that the laws were a framework for accomplishing our ends, not the ends themselves.

Meetings--our weekly service

        These meetings are held in dimly lighted underground catacombs with walls painted with fantastic designs. The chief priests and scribes sit at the head alter [sic]. The brethren of the congregation are assembled around them. The rite begins with an opening hymn. Then there is a confession of sins, frequently a sin so dreadful is committed that the offensive brother must do penance. Then the scribe intones a lengthy reading and the money changer responds with a brief response. Following this, the various high priests deliver brief homilies, most are not so brief. Usually exhortations to righteousness--do your duties! Finally there is a section reserved for general petitions. Arguments about doctrine and dogma usually develop here. The brethern [sic] become emotional; some become posessed [sic] by evil spirits and try to tempt the chief priest, but he refers to the scripture which is interprested [sic] by a prophet, and settles all arguments, on accasion [sic], however, the evil spirits win out and cause destruction and chaos. It is not unusual for these rituals to last long into the night. When the disputes are at an end, or exhaustion wears the assembly down, the list of unfortunates to whose lot the condemnation of the assembly has fallen is read and the high priest issues a benediction, the brothers respond "aye" and quickly leave the place.

        It has been noticed that attendance at our meetings has been falling off. Schack introduced a motion to have song practice and meeting changed from Monday to Sunday so that brothers with Monday evening class might attend. One of the big concerns all year was meeting attendance. Often wh [sic] didn't have enough brothers present to pass by laws (2/3 of total) At one point Rider introduced a motion to the effect that the by alws [sic] could be passed by 3/4 of the quorum, in hopes that this could induce brothers to attend. The motion failed.

Executive Board

        The exec board usually met on Sunday night at 9:30 or 10:00. (which was of course changed to 6:30 when song practice was moved to Sunday.)

        Early in the year Ed Eich challenged the exec board's practice of having closed meetings. He thought any brother who wanted should be allowed to attend the meetings. The board felt, however, that it often needed to discuss personal matters, fines etc. which didn't concern the body of the brothers. The board decided it would call in brothers who requested to be able to discuss certain issues.

        There were 18 fines appealed to the exec board plus a general appealing session in the spring of which I have no records.

        In the spring there was some question of exec board elitism. Truebenbach suggested that the members of the board be requited [sic] to do house duties. Springman with his usual tact, said that he would consider the proposal. As it turned out, the president, secretary, treasurer, and milk mixer were the only people exempt from house duties. After this, no question of elitism ever arose. Perhaps one of the ways the board was able to avoid this was through the infrequent use of "exec. board recommendations."

        It has generally been agreed that in cases of suspension or expulsion, the brother involved will appear before the board. This was only necessary once in the case of Sokolowski who requested and was granted expulsion.

        The exec board often served in an advisory capacity to various committee heads, and as a forum for batting issues around and deciding how they might best be presented to the brothers. Toejam presided at the meetings but usually tried to remain in the background. Toward the end of the year, Rider's voice became most influential.

The Chapter and the Corporation

        When we took office, Ed Ekch [sic] was the corporate representative to the chapter. Shortly thereafter there arose a bit of trouble abou[t] the exact status of the exec board of the corporation and the relation of the chapter to the corporation. Eich announced that the corporation would charge $15 a month for brothers living in the house over the summer. There was a question whether the corporation could do this, and there was even some doubt as to whether there ever really had been a vote on his issue by the corporation exec board. This touched of[f] a number of questions: just what were our obligations to the corporation, what had happeded [sic] to the money budgeted for the fire escape? Eich met with the exec board and cleared up most things. The relationship between the chapter and the corporation wase [sic] somewhat vague because there hadn't been enough time for precedents to arise. Eich expected precedents to be established in time, sort of like English Common Law.

        The corporation was established because of insurance matters and ease in getting loans. All brothers are stockholders, but the board of directors manages the assets--this means it has the power to charge a block rent for the year. The chapter is responsibel [sic] for raising the money. This satisfied most of the brothers. It was pointed out, however, that brother Eich might have been more formal in his voting procedures.

        The next time we heard about the corporation, it was Oct. 19, the day of homecoming and the annual meeting of the corp. A few alumni were here: jacobs [sic], Schnack, Stevens, and of course, Eich and Siebert. Kroeger presided at the meeting and passed a complete set of by laws with the least wastage of time. Ed Eich talked about a few of the things that needed doing around the house: rewiring, replumbing, installation of a fire escape, and perhaps rugs. Pleuss said that he had gotten an estimate for rewiring, $1659.00, so the corporation passed a motion to have Demott Electric rewire the house. It was decided to forgo the fire escape since we only had $600 left in the treasury. Eich announced that an alumni fund had been started and that the corp. would take care of insurance. The last order of This demonstrates that the report was made by Richard Kraemer.1 and Daehn were elected to serve on the board of directors. Jeff Daehn was chosen as active representative.

Rush and Social - excuse the unaesthetic treatment.

March 21 - We threw a dinner for Grant Belgarin and Tom Palozolo, two Week of Challenge speakers.
April 21 - The official dedication of our basement. We invited Chi Sigma Xi for the occasion. They provided the entertainment: a piano peice [sic] and a song and dance routine. this [sic] was a sort of reciprocal invitation for a time when they invited us.
May 3 - Greek orgy with the usual garb and finger food (chicken, bread, fruit, and wine) and eating took place on the floor. Helmreich and Esala put on a part of "Lysistrata" in Greek (because a number of brothers felt it would be inappropriate for mixed company). I myslelf [sic] put on a skit about the Trojan hourse [sic].
May 17 - the formal. It was held at the Lake of Four Seasons, a really romantic place which was made available through the courtesy of Dave Schmidt and his connections. A band called "Moonlight and Roses" played and we had a fairly good dinner. The meal plan procured a huge amount of liquor and raffled off the leftovers.
Sept. 20 - The SAIs put on a party in our house. All music majors and minors were invited, and the them was "A Musical Aloha" This party broke up fairly early.
Oct. 5 - A kindergarten party. We played Simon says and Gouker directed a rhythem [sic] band, we had a show and tell session, and Al Julseth read a nice little selection from "Don Juan" Right after this: blocks, sandbox, finger paints, jumprope, and cookies and milk. Zechser's party games saved the rest of the night. Unfortunately only one rushee showed up.
Oct. 13 - "Faculty Smoker" There were no faculty or no smoke, but a lot of rushees, and a lot of popcorn and pop and congenial conversation
Oct. 18 - A rush party with one rushee showing up again. There was dancing and listening to records and food.
Oct. 19 - Homecoming. At noon we had lunch in the band room. Vera had fixed a great dinner of ham, beans, and her potato salad. About 50 people were there. The brass quintet played "Camptown Racetrack" and the historian read a short version of the history. Later on that night we had another party for brothers and alumni with some dancing and quite a bit of liquid refreshment. Fred, the bartender tended bar.
Oct. 21 - "Faculty" Smoker - Carter and Taylor showed up. There was much acrid smoke, good things to eat and a fireside chat by Toejam. Following this we decided which rushees to send invitations to (we sent six). And then held a beer blast to wich farewell to Paul Truebenbach who had been recently drafted. The brothers presented Paul with a trophy that said "Most Valuable Coach" and a subscription to Sporting News.
Nov. 22 - Hayride. After wandering around the country a bit we found the farm and boarded two hayracks. According to Hahn, there are three ways to keep warm on a hayride: booz[e], blankets, and body heat. All three were liberally used. Afterwards we had hot chocolate and heard a musical written by a number of brothers organized by Esala. The musical was about Martin Luther and the hippies and contained readings from Elliot and Buber et al.
Nov. 24 - An open house for music majors and minors was held. About 50 rushees showed up.
Dec. 9 - Faculty Somker [sic]. Real smoke and real faculty (about 10). Linda Shutter played the role of cigarette girl. A good number of rushees showed up. Coffee and donuts were eaten.
Dec. 13 - The Christmas party, probably one of our most successful parties of the year. An excellent folk group played, the famous three plus two. Gouker played the traditional Santa Clause [sic]. A lot of imprompteau [sic] singing took place (the Hallelujah chorus of course was also attempted) and the trees were decorated. Cookies which had been baked by Vera were refreshments.
Jan. 10 - We spent two hours out on the toboggen [sic] slides at Mink Lake. The temperature was very low, but everyvody [sic] had fun even Zorba who fell in the lake. Afterwards we came back to the house for hot chocolate, dancing, talk, PDQ Bach, etc. 15 rushees were there.
Jan. 17 - The last supper. A final get together for rushees and actives during finals week. Menu included cold cuts, jello, three bean salad, Vera's potato salad, chips and pretzles [sic], relishes, etc. etc. Things began to look up as far as pledging was concerned. There were 34 rushees there.
Feb. 18 - A final smoker: Bach inventions, smoke galore, food (munching variety), an enormously boring lecture by Toejam and 9 rushees.
Feb. 21 - A short induction ceremony followed by a beer blast.

Rush

        Contrary to old bromides about changing horses in the middle of the stream we did. Schneeweiss began the year as rush chairman. He was plagued by lack of concern among the brothers and dissention in his own committee. Feeling very frustrated at the lack of success of the program he quit on Oct. 23. It was no fault of his own that things went wrong, the fraternity needs a strong, dominant personality in order to cempell [sic] brothers to do the sometimes unpleasant work associated with rush. Phil Hahn, just that kind of person was given the job. It was exciting to witness the change in the spirit of the fraternity after Hahn took over. Let me describe a few of the many activities he undertook. Somehow he was in charge of a fraternity sponsored trip to Chicago. After a few unfruitful trys, he finally hit upon the Pro Musica concert which through his promotions was a financially sound venture. Around Christmas time he was able to finagle the University out of a rug for the living room. Thereupon he moved the dinner tables into the basement, transformed the old dining room into a respectable sitting room, had Christmas trees put up in the basement and sitting room, plus wreaths, lights and many other decorations. It was quite an uplifting time. And I imagine his Christmas party was one of the highpoints of the year. After Christmas he was responsible for one of the more ambitious rush programs of my time. One thing that may have helped Hahn was a hard working committee which he ran like a tyrant. This year we were trying a new system of preliminary blackball sessions which was Steve Helmreich's idea. The prupose [sic] of this was to let brothers have a chance to find out which rushees they didn't know or which rushees were possibly objectionable. Also more emphasis was put on non-date functions than there had been.

Pledging

        When the new order took over in the spring of '68 we already had 15 pledges. Al jacobs [sic] was Pledgemaster and Dave Gouker his assistant. Jacobs had intimated that the spring pledge period was to be characterized by "creativity and dialogue." Pledges were going to be made to feel more a part of the fraternity. Weekly interviews between pledges and actives were to increase this feeling of unity, and hazing was to be kept at a minimum. Creativity was to be stressed in the pledge project they did and in a special creativity session.

        From the beginning this class was plagued by disunity and disillusionment. The president, Dave Bodenstab, music chairman, Larry Wallers, and Chuck Brodel depledged, all apparently had erroneous notions about what Sinfonia life was like. A number of others were ready to depledge and there was some doubt as to the willingness of Kern to do the required work. The project was going slow and few of the pledges ever showed up at the house. They had been lax in getting their interviews dome [sic] and preparing for their recital, moreover, they were scoring poorly on their dests [sic]. There was general discontent among the pledges especially about the length of pledge meetings. The exec board declared a state of emergency and called Jacobs on the carpet. He assured the board that the pledges could finish the required work by April 3, the date set for their initiation. The board, however, felt that this still did not give the brothers enough time to get to know the pledges, so the initiation was put off till after Easter. It was suggested that Jacobs require the pledges to be over at the house a certain number of hours per week, but this was uninforceable.

        I hate to be so negative. Probably the most creative project ever was done by the class: the painting of the basement. The Mondrianesque design was composed by Jacobs and Brown with the help of prof Caemmerer. This class also put on one of the most musical recitals in my memory. Resch and Moehring both did organ pieces, and Heitmann surprised many with his virtuousity on the clarinet. And Fredrickson added something new - a reading from Ginsburg's "Moloch." There were three insidious raids on the house during the pledge period also. The first on Mar. 26 was a dud. Someone took our sign and crossed wires on a few cars (this was expressly against the rules). Exactly a month later they struck again, taking faucets, silverware, toaster and painted the mirrors setting off fire crackers to herald their exit. On the 29th of April Tom Schmidt and Ron Oberla were given a one way ride to the airport (Dave Gouker would have gone too had it not been for Dean Galow). Previously Heitmann and Hahn had experienced a similar situation. Eventually they did complete their interviews, their pledge paddles, lost the pledge- active ball game, and finished their pledge period on May 1.

        In the fall of '68 we took only two pledges: Carter and Taylor. Gouker was pledgemaster then and was following a program similar to Jacob's but even more so. We passed a motion stating that all hell rides were subject to fines. Destructive pranks were discoureged [sic]. There did arise a small problem once when one of the pledges refused to polish the shoes of one of the actives. Gouker made it clear that brothers could ask the pledges to do work as long as it was useful work and didn't interfere with the studies of the pledges.

        The pledges actually pledged themselves on Oct. 24. They chose as their project a number of odd jobs that needed doing: painting the steps, washing windows etc. Due to the samll [sic] size of the class everyone was able to get to know the pledges well. The Monday after Thanksgiving was the day for "exposing the innermost workings" of the mind. Gouker held a creativity session that night. First the musical abilities of the pledges were challenged. Carter had to improvise along with a swing band Gouker had gotten together for the occasion. Taylor played musical impressions of certain words: pious, almost asleep, spring Then in the verbal part of the ordeal, both pledges had to give their diffinitions [sic] of various words: life, honor, etc. Taylor's concept of life made the biggest impression upon me: "a series of deaths and resurrections." Tuesday, Dec. 10 was the date of the pledge recital. Taylor played organ and flute and Carter played a clarinet sonata accompanied by Taylor. One precedent shaking event that occurred was the presence of two SAIs at the recital. Carter and Taylor were initiate[d] as full brothers the day before Christmas vacation. The ritual was performed in full.

        As far as I know, this was the first full performance of the ritual in the history of Kappa Sigma. It was put on in its entirety because of Marsh's worning [sic] that we might be inspected. No one had any objections to it since everybody was sort of expecting all that vomitry, [..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .] Gouker organized and directed the undertaking.

        On Feb. 21 we took a spring pledge class of 12 men (there was the usual beer blast afterwards.) It was apparent that this was to be one of our most musically talented classes ever and we also took an engineer and an artist. Being an extremely energetic class they held a secret meeting to elect officers immediately afterwards. Dave Deffner was president, Schultz was secretary, Pinkert, priject [sic] chairman, Wheelock and Michelson were music co- chairmen, and John Stechholz was athletic chairman. Gouker decided that a more individual approach was to be taken towards these pledges: those who wanted hazing would get it, those who were more serious in these matters would be left alone.

        The pledges decided to undertake the remodeling of the TV room, the building of a cabinet for pop bottles and tools, the patching of the cracks left by the electricians, and the installation of the basketball goal -- quite an ambitious project. John Pinkert was the mastermind of all these plans, Chris Michaelson supplying the aesthetic know how. The only prank that had been done to date is the pilferage of the composite and all the door[k]nobs. (This lead [sic] to a number of inconveniences -- brothers getting locked in bathrooms etc.) The pledge-active ball game took place on Mar. 9 and were soundly defeated as has been the tradition.

House - be it ever so humble

        John Pleuss was chosen as house manager for the '68-'69 year. When it came time for house rules to be passed, there arose some dissention regarding liquor. Someone moved that the rule stating that all liquor be hidden be stricken from the rules since the possession of liquor without special permission was against university regulations, and it was so. Later Pleuss decided that drinking was only to be done in bedrooms and studies and in the basement.

        That spring the usual hassle over who was to be assigned to what room for the next year. The use of a little diplomacy and compromise saved the day without having to resort to the seniority system. All beds were filled for the next year andit was decided that in the future there would be only 24 brothers living in the house instead of the 25 who had previously lived there.

        Major improvements accomplished in the spring were: the painting of the basement and the reseeding of the front lawn.

        Over the summer the upstairs bedroom and kitchen were painted and the parking lot was completed ($895.).

        The new school year began with a bang. On Sept. 14 there was a general house cleaning -- the downstairs floors were sanded and revarnished the basement floor waxed and the garage clended [sic]. Pleuss was able to pick up a used carpet from Chi Sigma Xi for $35. This was cut down to size and installed on the stairs and in the upstairs and downstairs hallways. A sizeable chunck [sic] was left over and was used in the "meeting room."

        Before Christmas another burst of activity began -- Hahn's preparation for the Christias [sic] party. We got a rug from the university for the living room, and an antique couch from Toejam and a couple chairs from the basement helped transform the dining room into a sitting room. This was quite a wise thing to do since it created much more living room. Eating in the basement (aptly christened the WT) provided a slight problem. The temperature was partially solved by putting plastic sheets over the windows.

        Over the Christmas vacation one of the major improvements of the year -- the rewiring -- was done by DeMott Electric for $1659. This eliminated the fire hazard, the blowing of fuses every time the toaster was operated, and the unaesthetic wires in the basement, and created a much more convenient setup of outlets and switches (even a rheostat in the meeting room) and many holes in the walls.

        The spring '69 pledge class decided to do something about the awful state of the TV room, so they are panelling it, putting in a ceiling, and somehow concealing the furnace. They are also patching up holes left by the electricians, and building a cabinet in the basement. About this same time we voted to buy a carpet for the front room for $150.

        There was some concern during the year about the proliferation of house rules. Some thought that such rules were legalistic and discouraged communications and brotherly "reminders." At one time there was also some worry that "The fraternity is the house." Perhaps too much emphasis was put on the house, maybe this hurt us as a professional music fraternity.

Meal Plan - "The sun never sets upon the meal plan committee."

        I guess the two most important things that happened to the meal plan were Zechser and Vera. LeRoy began the year as meal steward, but when he announced that he wouldn't be living in the house, CAZ was chosen in his place. Immediately Cliff began his bureaucratic rule by organizing the files, books, pantry and printing scads of inventory sheets, cook's reminders, etc. Throughout Cliff's regime, the meal plan reports were the longest and most boring of all. (Gouker even introduced a motion to limit committee freport [sic] to 10 minutes, aimed mainly at Cliff) For all this busy-ness, Cliff did make the meal plan better than ever before, especially weekend meals -- no more meatless weekends, and Cliff was able to compel brothers to do their duties without having to resort to the fine system as much as Schmiege had. He also added a number of delicacies to our menu: instant bacon, juice, pot pies, and frozen vegetables. He instituted a number of partial meal plan options for brothers living outside the house and tightened up pantry regulations. All of these rules alienated a few of the brothers.

        The other half of this pair, Vera, the cook, does more for the fraternity than many brothers. Her cooking is full of TLC especially: corn fritters, home made pies, cookies, and country style vegetable soup. She does much more than her job necessitates: cooks on weekends, picks up groceries from the store, makes extra lunches for brothers, is always willing to do extra favors for brothers like sewing buttons on shirts, always willing to listen to brother's problems, and in all of this rarely complains and is forgiving when brothers forget to do their duties. Her husband, Fred is a good fellow too. On a number of occasions he has tended bar for us and he is always ready to get an estimate on storm windows for us etc. The two of them game [sic] us a subscription to "Reader's Digest" for Christmas.

        The only problem is, maybe they do too much for us -- perhaps the brothers sometimes unconsciously take advantage of their goodness.

        During Cliff's term we procured a stove (over the summer), a new custom built Crown which we had to fastidiously clean every week. We also got a chest type freezer for $50. from Toejam's parents again when our old one broke down.

        A few of the new features of Zechser's administration were: a food preference questionnair[e] and a system of fines that required people who didn't do dish duties to do 1/2 of the duties for the next night, and any other infractions to be worked off over the weekend. The meal plan also became an independent entity under the new set of by laws -- the chapter continued to pay for large applieance [sic] like the new freezer and gas and water. With the excess money remaining in the spring of '68 Cliff financed a dinner at Wellman's for all meal plan brothers and their dates This was a year of cooperation between the meal plan and other committees over dinners and parties and a liberal attitude towards guests. The stove hood which we had contracted was not forthcoming. As a result, legal action was taken. There were 25 brothers on full meal paln, four on evenings only.

Athletics -- Wir eilen mit schwachen doch emsigen Schritten.^[1]

        We went through three athletic chairmen in the year: Malanke, Gouker and LeRoy, but the spiritual leader of the "Jocks" was usually Gouker. The athletic involvements of the fraternity which had been begun by Coach Trueby were expanded by Gouker. We began to make ourselves known through athletics.

        The big event of the spring of '68 was the track meet. Our first practice was April 20 when about seven of us ran four miles (eu weh^[2]). The first meet took place on May 10 and it turned out pretty bad for the music weeps -- only Bob Frederickson won anything of note -- he took second place in the half mile. At that same time, a tennis tournament was going on among the brothers. Roland Jank beat Springman for the championship. LeRoy won the Derebus award that year for all around best athlete and Fredrickson won the Hg award for best track man.

        Things looked promising for the following fall -- last year we came in third in the cross country and this year we had a number of new runners: Tom Lee, Paul Wolf, and Bob Fredrickson who showed quite a bit of promise. Unfortunately none of these panned out and we lost our best runner, LeRoy Christenson, because of a foot injury. The meet took place on Oct 23. We were somewhat handycapped [sic] by the fine weather (we usually run best in hail and rain), but we did come in 6th of all organizations running. The runners were: Esala 16, Gouker 29, Fredrickson 44, Stechholz 48, and Keller 82 (out of 85).

        Basketball occupied the Jocks for the rest of the year. LeRoy had chosen Gouker as coach. Practice began early in the year, right after track was over. We generally had one practice a week on Saturday or Sunday until the season began. This year we had been promoted into the fraternity league due to our good record under coach Trueby the year before. This year, however, we were not helped by forfeits as much -- in fact there were none, and many of the teams were simply bigger and better We won only three games: two against the Delta Sigs and one against the Beta Lambda colony. Since we have no records of points scored or games won, I must refer the reader to Gouker's summary of the year in the scrap book.

        We did manage to beat the pledges in the spring pledge-active game by quite a bit, in a game complete with national anthem, a pep band and a commentator. At that game, Gouker presentad [sic] a ball to the fraternity and awards to Hahn and Keller for showing up at all the games and he himself was presented with the most valuable player award -- he often was a sort of spiritual leader for the team, and scored the most points also. At this time the basketball net was being put up, so athletics turned more towards the informal.

        During the year there were also attempts to start a swimming team and a water polo team, but these never materialized. We participated in a tennis tournament in fall; our star, Roland Jank, our star did quite well.

Brothers in Campus Affairs

        Early in the spring of '68 Ed Eich sent a letter to all the greek organizations on campus urging them to support WVUR (the senate was contemplating doing away with it). Having the permission of most of the brothers, the letter was signed "The men of Phi Mu Alpha." (Whereupon there arose some controversy over the use of that phrase.) This seemed in part to be a move to gain recognition for Phi Mu Alpha as a fraternity. Since we are not part of the IFC there is some reluctance on the part of the rest of the fraternities to consider us a real fraternity. At times brothers had occasion to question our non-membership in IFC, but others maintained that we really ought to preserve our uniqueness -- after all we were different from the others in that we had a common interest in music that held us together.

        This first spring, Steve Helmreich was the fine arts editor for the Torch. When a new Torch staff took over, Dave Gouker became the music editor. Of course most of the music reviews during the year were done by brothers. Interestingly enough, there was a plot afoot in the fall to topple the establishment and make Dave Gouker the new Torch editor.

        In the fall, Erik Moehring became the first student senator from the Sinfonia house. Our district consisted of Stiles, Dodge, and De[a]coness Halls. Tex became our representative to ASC. And I could not leave out Dave Stechholz either. although [sic] he held no official post, he was extremely involved in senate affairs and often urged brothers to take more interest in the senate.

        At one time during the fall, a bit of controversy came up about the opera "Carmen" which the community concert and the union board had gone together to sponsor. The UB backed down, leaving the community concert high and dry. A number of the brothers were quite vocal about this issue

Fine Arts

        Steve Helmreich was made chairman of the fine arts committee. This committe[e] was hampered from the beginning by its lack of funds. Steve had to practically beg for $15 he eventually did get. The FAC was responsible for a number of receptions after reci[t]als. The only two I have records of were for Eifrig and Gehring in the spring of '69. These receptions were usually well know[n] for their exotic refreshments: cherries jubilee, raw ground beef. Janson's mother provided the food for the reception after his recital. It seems that in the past the SAIs often supplied the food for the receptions. This year there was no such collaberation. This may be evidence of a general alienation between us and the women of SAI.

        The fine arts committee also sponsored two other projects: procurring [sic] crocuses for the front lawn and starting a collection of piano music.

Religion

        On Sept. 30, two of our brothers, Pleuss and Bossard attended a chaplain's retreat. They came back rather fired up. The[y] had found out quite a lot about the concept of a Christian university -- a university that offered a distinctly Christian alternative. And one of the ways this could be done was through residential ministry, a way of "living with religion through the week." It was thought that it would be difficult to have daily or weekly devotions in the house. A discussion group would be more our forte. Rev. Keller visited our house soon after the retreat. After discussing for a while we dicided [sic] to ask Eifrig to come to the house for a few hours on Wednsday [sic] nights, just to discuss. He consented and we had our first discussion on Oct. 9. The whole living room was filled with brothers. The topics of discussion centered around music and drifted to theology. The meetings continued, but attendance dwindled sharply after the first meeting, until after Christmas, almost nobody came.

Advisors

        It has been said of our advisors that they have no interest in the fraternity. No, on the contrary, both Kroeger and Julseth are extremely interested in the fraternity. For instance, every time Kroeger sees someone from the fraternity -- in piano lessons or just walking by in the hall, he demands a short summary of what is going on in the fraternity, moreover, many a time he has had a few of the brothers over to his house for a game of bridge etc. Julseth is always willing to serve in the unenviable capacity of chaperone at our parties etc. Both advisors have attended meetings on occasion, but do not wish to speak too often for fear of being too advisorly. Both seem to be willing to let us have as much autonomy as possible.

Summer

        Over the summer six of the brothers: Schmiege, Tex, Daehn, Watkins, Melang, and Anders went on a camping trip in northern Minnesota. The house was occupied by a few brave fellows during this time.

Radio

        Haritatos headed the radio committee. We broadcasted our progarm [sic] in the 7 - 5 time slot which was later changed to 3 - 5. The one memorable show was Tex's program, featuring music from "Hair." Phil Hahn did a program on "Music of Valparaiso," broadcasting tapes from some of the previous Phi Mu Alpha concerts.

Pop Machine

        Phil Hahn was pop machine manager. At one time the pop machine and milk mixing laborers were contemplating forming a union and striking for a 100% wage increase. There was usually friction between the pop machine manager and the meal stewards because of pop kept in the pantry. This was alleviated when the pledges finished the cabinet in the basement.

GPA

Spring - 2.02
Fall - 2.12

Alumni Affairs

        The alumni secretary was somewhat lax at his job, but one newsletter did go out before homecoming. On occasion we saw some of our brothers who had left the sheltering institution: Ed Eich (enlisted in the army) and Al Jacobs (studying at RF). Tom Schmidt was here once in March -- a pleasant surprise. We often hear from Schmiege (studying at Springfield) and Trueby (a chap's assistant in the army), the two brothers that became alumni in the middle of the year.

David Keller  
March 23, 1970

^[1] "We hurry with weak but active strides" [-- translated by Joel Hahn]

^[2] "Oh, woe!" [same as Yiddish "Oy veh" --translated by Joel Hahn]