Summer 2023 Edition The Rho Phi FIJI Newsletter Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Phi Gama Delta Fraternity President’s Corner New President Elected My name is Nick Edwards (class of 2025), and I have the honor of serving as the new Rho Phi chapter president for nine months. I am beyond excited to continue in the footsteps of our last president, Phillip Noblitt, and bring back the normalcy of the pre-Covid era. I believe we have already done an excellent job of this, but I am confident that we will always find ways to improve! As of now, the new cabinet’s goals this year are to grow the brotherhood aspect of the fraternity, as well as develop the new brothers of our chapter into leaders that can leave the chapter in good standing for years to come. Speaking upon numbers alone this past year, this is one of the most diverse groups I have seen. We currently have 98 undergraduate brothers, 63 of which are athletes across eight sports. Along with our great athletics, we also have heavy involvement in many different clubs and Res Life, including our first RA in years. We have also brought in 26 fantastic new members into our fraternity in the past year, with four spring members initiated at the end of April. This has been a big year for service and philanthropy for the chapter. Earlier in the fall, we brought back our annual football run for USO, in which we raised over $1,100. In October, we hosted our Pi a Phi event, where we raised nearly $2,000 for Happiness Bag, a local charity that helps those with mental disabilities. Later in the year, we held our annual Christmas dinner with Happiness Bag, where we sang Christmas Carols and gifted presents. In the spring, we were able to raise nearly $1000 for the Alzheimer's Foundation of America through donations by brothers and spreading the word on campus. We also participated in and hosted a lot of service events this year, including building bikes for underprivileged youths, our clothe-a-child event, two neighborhood cleanups, our highway cleanup, and helping with a triathlon. We had a large graduate showing at Pig Dinner this past year, with many coming back for their 50year anniversary of having been initiated into the chapter. Homecoming was a big success as well, with many grad brothers coming back to watch our football players win over Manchester. Overall, it has been a very busy, yet rewarding year for the chapter. We invite you to come back for both Pig Dinner and Homecoming. You are also always welcome at the house. Thank you all for the impact that you have had on this fraternity, and I hope to meet you soon if I haven’t already! \r\nFIJI Newsletter WE NEED YOUR HELP Help by submitting your most up to date email address With some changes at Google, we have had to rebuild our entire email list of graduate brother emails. This is especially true for brothers whom we only had an @rosefiji.com email. Please go online now to fill out this form (found at https://forms.gle/UUc1Gnu3F6v9AJVg8) with your name, email, address and latest contact information for graduate relations to stay up to date. Please do not forget to hit “Submit” at the end of the form to make sure we get your information in our system. Having up-to-date information is important to receive updates on the state of the chapter and grad event dates such as homecoming and pig dinner. Cabinet Changeover Following another successful year, a new cabinet has been installed to continue leading the chapter to greatness. With goals of holding more brotherhood and social events, the new cabinet hopes to encourage deepened bonding between brothers, while maintaining great relations with graduates as well. Pictured below, the new cabinet consists of Nick Edwards as President (center), James Morehouse as Treasurer (left-center), Jacob Vandorpe as Recording Sec. (right-center), Noah Lockhart as Corresponding Sec. (right), and Aaron Greve as Historian (left). Extremely impressed current state of the chapter, this new cabinet is excited to continue pushing for excellence. Spring 2023 Rush and Chapter House Update The Chapter pulled in four new members with the end of Spring Rush. Each one has already shown they can make a difference in their communities in different ways. Starting from left to right, Dane Blackburn, Ethan Pabbathi, Ellis Lyons, and Bryan Pfeifer. For undergraduate brothers that are struggling to pay to live in the house or to pay their chapter dues, we have instituted a program where a portion of the outstanding money can be paid off through paid service to the house. This is done via additional cleaning, repairing, or extra service to the chapter. This has helped us reduce some outside costs while supporting brothers that have tremendous need. \r\n \r\nFIJI Newsletter Athletics The Rose-Hulman baseball team finished 23-21 overall (13-9 in conference) while being led by seniors Andy Krajecki, Blake Deckard, Brenden Harris, and Sam Stieby. Andy Krajecki was named to all HCAC second team for the year, while also being named to the CSC Academic All-District team along with Dalton Busboom and Blake Deckard. The team finished fourth in conference before falling to Anderson in the playoffs. The men’s track and field took home the championship making that their 27th conference championship in the last 29 years. Fiji’s lone track senior Tyce Miller helped set the school record twice in the 4x100 along with brother Jack Cox. Living out Morality, Excellence, and Service Campus Clean-up Fall campus clean-up this year was an interesting one. We had several brothers come to campus to help clean-up Rose-Hulman’s campus. This year we helped prepare for homecoming by unloading tractor trailers filled with pallets. This was one of the first service events of the year and a great way to help our campus. Happiness Bag Our annual tradition of the Happiness Bag was continued on December 18, 2022. Brothers partnered by the Chi Omega Sorority from Rose, came to aid in bringing joy and happiness during the holiday season to individuals with disabilities. The event started off with brothers setting the tables and striking conversations with those who participated in the event. Dinner proceeded, followed by gift sharing, in which brothers, as well as our proud Santa and elf combination, handed out gifts. The event ended with all the brothers singing Christmas Carols. We can proudly say that no ears were harmed during the singing. \r\nSummer 2023 Edition Bikes For Tykes Nearly fifty brothers gathered in Rose-Hulman’s SRC to participate in the annual “Bikes for Tykes” campus-wide service event. After a fun brotherhood retreat near Bloomington, brothers woke up early on December 4th, 2022, to head straight to the service event. The brothers had tons of fun assembling the bikes, and we look forward to doing the event for years to come! Community Clean-up In both the fall and the spring, over sixty brothers partnered with residents of Farrington’s Grove to aid in a community clean-up as well as planting trees and doing odd jobs for residents. The brothers took donations from residents and raised over $500 for the Red Cross. Free T-shirts and a cook-out for volunteers were provided. The event gave brothers an opportunity to represent Fiji well and interact with the neighbors. Brothers were also able to do a highway clean-up in the spring on U.S. 40. They were able to pick up over 10 bags of trash! Thunder in the Valley Triathlon More than twenty brothers showed up to a service event in which brothers participated in a variety of volunteering activities that occurred at a triathlon in Hawthorn Park. There, you could find brothers helping with parking, in kayaks watching over swimmers, helping time at various stages, guiding individuals throughout the triathlon, and much more. \r\nFIJI Newsletter Greek Games Greek Games are back this year with eight in-person events and one video submission. The events included a relay race, kickball, cornhole, an eating competition, dodgeball, golf, minute to win it, and a human pyramid. The Chapter did quite well in the events; first in dodgeball, second in the human pyramid, and third in golf, cornhole, kickball, and the eating competition. All the brothers who showed up had a great time, and many participated. There are aspirations for this to become just as good, if not better than it once was. Graduation This year we have seventeen seniors graduating. They were all very active members of both the fraternity and the school community. We have two past presidents graduating, another former cabinet member, as well as football, baseball, track and field, volleyball, and golf players, as well as many other activities. Some of them are also in the blue key honor society, alpha lambda delta, sigma phi sigma, photon squad, and more. These seniors will be missed, and we thank them for their time here at the Rho Phi Chapter, they will always be brothers because this isn’t just for college days alone. \r\nSummer 2023 Edition Pig Dinner This year, our Rho Phi chapter celebrated our 53rd annual Frank Norris Pig Dinner, in person! It was a great night, filled with story sharing among brothers during dinner. We wanted to thank all attending Grad-brothers, especially speakers Tim Pulliam (RHIT 2008) and Ryan Robinson (RHIT 2007) for sharing fond memories of their late pledge-classmate Luis Pettengill, who passed away during this year. They focused on FRIENDSHIP, perhaps our most important value, making the point that even in tragedy, memories of a lost brother reunited a pledge class and rekindled memories of brotherly love. Pie-A-Phi On Wednesday, September 20, 2023, we will be hosting a fundraiser on campus, devoted to Happiness Bag. Happiness Bag is a local organization that invests in educational and recreational activities for those challenged with disabilities within our community. Donations can be made from now up until midnight on September 20, 2023. The event will take place at BSB Lower Lawn on the Rose-Hulman campus and will be livestreamed as well. More information can be found at: https://phigam.crowdchange.co/33519 Please Reach Out Please reach out to Corresponding Secretary Noah Lockhart by emailing noahlock03@gmail.com or Grad-Relations Chair Tyler Orr by emailing tylerorr2022@gmail.com for any grad-relation matters. Save the Date! Homecoming September 30th, 2023