UTD Chapter History, Fall 1997

At the beginning of the fall 1997 semester, UTD staff member Roger Stearns set out to establish a chapter of Alpha Phi Omega on the UT-Dallas campus. Roger was quickly introduced to the first interested student Luci Wong by Section 41 Chair Kari Logan. From this point, the two began actively recruiting students to begin an Alpha Phi Omega chapter on the UTD campus.

Roger moved to Dallas in August 1997 to work for the UTD Police Department. Originally from Illinois, Roger spent 8 years with APO in Fayetteville, Arkansas. While in Fayetteville he, along with seven other Eagle Scouts, re-established the Beta Rho Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega in Spring 1990. He graduated from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor's degree in communications and worked for the University of Arkansas Police Department.

Luci's first contact with Alpha Phi Omega had been earlier that spring. She was introduced to APO by Amy DeLisse, a high school friend from Richardson, Texas that was a brother with the Beta Rho Chapter at the University of Arkansas. Luci attended the Section 41 conference with Amy that semester, and decided she would endeavor to get the fraternity chartered on the UTD campus when she returned to school after the summer break.

Roger and Luci posted flyers on campus, set up an information table, and held information meetings to recruit more sutdents interested in LEADERSHIP, FRIENDSHIP, and SERVICE. The group officially became an Interest Group on November 13, 1998. Alpha Omicron Chapter at Southern Methodist University (SMU) was assigned to be our sponsoring chapter. By the end of the Fall semester the group had recruited 15 students and 6 advisors.

The students were: Daisy Blake, Valerie Britton, Jay Cordaro, Somchai Paiboonfungfuang, Nicole Johnson (Sigma Nu Chapter Alumni), Robyn Jordan, Huan Le, Jason Mercer (Eagle Scout), Daniel Rathburn, Christine Shek, Terry Serna (Beta Sigma Chapter Alumni), Christian Sparks, Minh Hai Tran, Steve Westdyk (Eagle Scout), and Luci Wong. The Fall 97 Officers and Advisors were:

President Luci Wong

VP Service Christian Sparks

VP Membership Terry Serna

Secretary/Treasurer Steve Westdyk

University Advisor Student Activities Office Patty Atchley

Fraternity Advisor SMU AO Chapter Alumni Michael Hayes

Scouting Advisor GSUSA Representative Amanda Owens

University Advisor University Police Chief Colleen Ridge

Advisory Chair University Police and BP Chapter Alumni Roger Stearns

Methodist minister and BP Chapter Alumni Jeff Warrick

The group also participated in a handful of service projects the first semester. These projects included helping Habitat for Humanity remodel a house, picking up trash around campus, running the homecoming king and queen elections, and a joint "Trick or Treat for Canned Goods" food drive with Alpha Omicron.

In October of 1997, the group participated in its first regional conference, which was held at Texas A & M University. The three members attending were Luci Wong, Christian Sparks, and Steve Westdyk.

UTD Chapter History, Spring 1998

On January 25, 1998 the group officially gained Petitioning Group status, and began its second semester on the UTD campus. With a new set of officers and much enthusiam, the petitioning group continued its work toward chartering. The new officers and advisors were:

President Luci Wong

VP COLD Jay Cordaro

VP Membership Christian Sparks

VP Service Robyn Jordan

Secretary Christine Shek

Treasurer Jason Mercer

University Advisor Student Activities Office Patty Atchley

Fraternity Advisor SMU AO Chapter Alumni Michael Hayes

Scouting Advisor GSUSA Representative Amanda Owens

University Advisor University Police Chief Colleen Ridge

Advisory Chair University Police and BP Chapter Alumni Roger Stearns

Methodist minister and BP Chapter Alumni Jeff Warrick

During this semester, treasurer Jason Mercer set up the group's bank account. The account was set up at Community Credit Union just down the street from the university on Campbell Road. The beginning balance was $325.00.

Membership Vice President Christian Sparks began the first planned fellowship program with a weekly movie night at the Waterview Park clubhouse. The group also held a tradition of going to supper together each Sunday after the meetings.

The biggest step forward made by the group was the service program which was developed by Vice President of Service Robyn Jordan. The projects done by the chapter included:

Campus Escorts: An ongoing project with the UTD Police Department that offered accompaniment for students to walk to their cars at night upon request.

Visiting ill children at Children's Medical Center (this was everyone's favorite). We went and made valentine decorations and cards with the children staying in the hospital over Valentine's Day.

UTD Career Day: Made "wish packs" for the Make-a-Wish foundation.

UTD Health Fair - Handed out home inkless-fingerprinting kits for parents to fingerprint their children at home.

Work Day at BSA Camp Constantin - This was a joint project with Alpha Omicron. Members helped rebuild the dining hall and enlarge a campsite.

Buckner Children's Carnival - Ran a bobbing-for-apples booth. Very fun!!

Cleaned Trash along Floyd Road - Helped in a campus/neighborhood effort to clean up trash alongside Floyd Road near the entrance to UTD.

Section-wide Garage Teardown - Tore down a condemned garage for a low-income elderly woman so that she wouldn't have to pay someone to have it done.

The first annual spring banquet was also held. The menu was potluck style. Kelly Severns did a wonderful job of coordinating and playing Master of Ceremonies for the banquet. Perhaps one of the most unique things that we did was to invite family to the banquet. There were around forty people present (impressive for a chapter of 12).

The first awards were given out at this banquet. Christian Sparks received the Outstanding Service award for Active members. Christine Shek received the Outstanding Active award. Deirdre Fisher received the award for Outstanding Service - Pledge, and Leigh Anne Hutchison received the Outstanding Pledge award.

UTD Chapter History, Fall 1998

Petitioning Group Elected Officers and Advisory Board

President Jason Mercer

VP COLD Christine Shek

VP Membership Luci Wong

VP Service Robyn Jordan

Secretary Deirdre Fisher

Treasurer Leigh Anne Hutchison

Advisory Chair University Police and BP Chapter Alumni Roger Stearns

University Advisor Student Activities Office Patty Atchley

Fraternity Advisor SMU AO Chapter Alumni Michael Hayes

Scouting Advisor GSUSA Representative Amanda Owens

University Advisor University Police Chief Colleen Ridge

Human Resources and OD Chapter Alumni Tina Sharpling

Methodist minister and BP Chapter Alumni Jeff Warrick

Fall 1998 was very important to our chapter. First of all, the chapter welcomed: Clare Fisher, Russell Fluitt, Frank Kozel, Roxana Kazempour, Shelly Lindahl, Art Newton, Tanh Tranh and Steve Wilt as pledges. Luci Wong served as Membership VP and initiated the pledges in the "Ways of APO" with the chapter's first formal pledge program.

The UTD petitioning group took on some big projects in the Fall. The cornerstone of those projects had to be the Trick-or-Treat for canned goods drive. Organized by Robyn Jordan and the members of the service committee, the project consisted of having many student organizations on campus go out into Richardson neighborhoods and see which student organization got the most canned goods donated. The project was a success. 1862 canned goods were donated to charity, and the project got the chapter a writeup in the campus newspaper.

The really big event in Fall 1998 for the chapter was the Chartering Ceremony on December 12, 1998. The UTD Petitioning Group became Alpha Epsilon Zeta. Petitioning group members who became full APO members during the Chartering Ceremony included: Jay Cordaro, Jason Mercer, Robyn Jordan, Dierdre Fisher, Leigh Anne Hutchison, Luci Wong, Christine Shek, Kelly Severns, Clare Fisher, Russell Fluitt, Frank Kozel, Roxana Kazempour, Shelly Lindahl, Art Newton, Tanh Tranh, and Steve Wilt, as well as the chapter's first alumnus, Somchai Paiboonfungfuang, who thankfully didn't get his name engraved on anything.

Finally, 9 AEZ members capped the semester by attending the National Convention in sunny (and very cold) Minneapolis. The outside temperature sometimes dipped below -40 with windchill, but Christine Shek and Luci Wong hardly took notice because they were in committee and in session for much of the conference. One day they each spent over 17 hours on the debate floor, representing APO's newest chapter. Christine said the experience was "tiring, but educational."

We Rock the World!!!!!

Spring 1999

This was the first full semester after the chartering of our chapter. Many significant things happened this semester, including creation of our own pledge program. We also attended our first sectional conference, which was held by the Beta Delta chapter at A&M Commerce. The theme of the conference was "Service in the Sticks", and it was a great chance for us to get to know the other chapters in our section.

Chapter Officers

Pledge Class Namesake: Jimmy Bartle Taylor

Pledge Class Gift:

Chapter Awards

Fall 1999

This was another good semester for APO. First, Jason Mercer and Robyn Jordan got married during the summer. The pledge program was refined, and new traditions were started. The first pledge retreat was held at Lake Texhoma with most of the pledges and actives in attendance. Everyone had a blast, and it was a great bonding time for the pledges. We all got up bright and early Saturday morning for the service project, cleaning up and lumber yard and the beach at Eisenhower State Park. In doing this, a new tradition was born: the pledge class found their mascot Woody among a pile of firewood. He was a handsome guy made from 3 pieces of wood stumps stacked together, and as one pledge put it---"nothing sticks out like Woody!"

We attended our first regional conference hosted by Alpha Omicron at SMU. The theme was "Helping Hands, Open Hearts", and our chapter got honorable mention at roll call with our rendition of the theme---"Helping Hams, Open Farts".

In addition, the DSK was given to an active in our chapter. The recipient was unanimously agreed upon for her incredible dedication and service to the chapter, Robyn Mercer.

Chapter Officers

Pledge Class Namesake: Stan "The Man" Carpenter

Pledge Class Gift: APO Decorative Paddle

Chapter Awards

Spring 2000

This was a momentous year in not only APO history, but AEZ’s as well. APO celebrated its 75^th anniversary and AEZ hosted its first sectional conference. The theme for sectionals was "Diamonds are Forever – 75 Years of APO –" in honor of the anniversary, and it was a big success. Held in the Galaxy rooms, the conference was delivered to representatives of the chapters in section 41. Following the conference, we hosted a "Decades" dance where everybody enjoyed the collages of events of each decade, which we created. We hosted our first Ugly Man on Campus and raised over five hundred dollars for the Scottish Rite Hospital. Our Sectional Chair, Kari Logan, was awarded the Sectional Distinguished Service Key. At our banquet, Jason Mercer received the Chapter DSK for his service to the chapter. At the 2000 Clan Olympics, the Sparks battled their way to the top and left with 1^st place. Grant Smith took home the Killer trophy this semester and APGhetto premiered for the first time with its spoof on the Blair Witch project thanks to Ruben Olivarez, Lilly Lu, Sabine Issac and Grant Smith.

Chapter Officers:

Pledge Class Namesake: Dr Jennifer

Pledge Class Gift: Family Tree

Chapter Awards

Fall 2000

To keep up with a great spring semester, Fall 2000 was also focused on our national heritage. We paid tribute by going to Philadelphia for the National Convention. At the convention, we were able to meet with our brothers from all over America, and swap stories and fellowship with one another. Besides the National Convention, we thought we would bring some new traditions to our chapter by hosting our first Math and Science Camp. We brought in kids from around the area to enjoy the wonders of academics. We had labs and demonstrations with animals and snakes for the kids, and filled their bellies as well as their minds. Chapter fellowships were raised to a new level with the introduction of the AEZ Cup created by Omar Manlapaz. The AEZ Cup was a competition where clans would try to obtain points for most attendance to service projects and other games played throughout the semester. The Sparks went home as the first AEZ Cup Champions. Not to be outdone be the Sparks, Chris Knight of the Jordan Clan became the winner of this semester’s Killer Game.

Chapter Officers:

Pledge Class Namesake: Robert C. Barkhurst

Pledge Class Gift: APO Quilt

Chapter Awards

Spring 2001

This semester was a knockout semester for pledges, with the largest number of pledges in AEZ history, 15!!! We hosted our first Scouting University, and it was a huge success with over 80 Scouts in attendance, thanks especially to Joanne Wright. We held our annual UMOC competition, won this year by Aaron ???????, one of the senior PAs, with funds going to American Cancer Society. Other special projects that semester included another round of Brazos Buccaneers with the AO chapter at SMU, helping out with Scouting for Food, and the advent of the painting project on campus. The pledge class began what would be an oft-repeated project of painting the lovely green benches and brown handrails around campus, thanks to the advice of Sam Eicke at the Physical Plant.

In bylaw related news, this semester saw the biennial bylaw review committee, led by Steven Proctor. The main changes coming out of this year’s committee were an overhauling of the VP COLD and Secretary positions. The changes turned the VP COLD from Chapter Operations and Leadership Development into Communications and Leadership Development (now CoLD). The Secretary also saw major changes, with it’s committees (such as Newsletter and Interchapter Relations) being reshuffled amongst the VPs. The other

AEZ chapter was well represented at the sectional Conference at TCU, with about a dozen members attending. The theme of the conference was "Add Some Fruit to Your Section," and boy did we ever. Our chapter took home several awards, including Best Costume for Ruben’s suit coat and grass skirt ensemble, Sexiest Bowler for Art’s score of 69 on Friday Night, and the much coveted Fruitiest Chapter Award.

Clan Olympics was held in May under the auspices of the VP Membership, Russell. The clans competed in the tug-of-war, the two-man (or woman) carry, a cool sponge throwing blindfolded game, an egg toss, and the maze thingie (you know what I’m talking about). Ultimately, it came down to sudden death overtime between the Sparks and the Cordaros, with the Sparks won a gripping Rock, Paper, Scissors match four games to two.

In other competition related news, this semester’s Killer game was won by a pledge, Doug Martin, who won by default with the most kills (4) when banquet came around.

As always the semester ended with banquet. This semester, the banquet was run by Carrie Eshelbrenner, a new active who transferred from the Delta Beta chapter at the University of Oklahoma. It was a rather emotional affair as we said goodbye (or at least thought we did, in Ruben’s case) to some of our ‘oldest’ members as they went on to bigger and better things.

Chapter Officers

Pledge Class Namesake: Cecil Green

Pledge Class Gift: "The Chief," an oak tree

Chapter Awards

Fall 2001

Before we talk about the fall semester, we simply must mention what a great APO summer we had in 2001. Summer 2001 featured CPW in scenic Nacogdoches, TX, home of Stephen F. Austin University and not much else. In a sneak preview of Regionals, Steven, Jo Anne, Carrie, and Doug went down to SFA for a weekend of workshops, weird cramped showers, hair scrunchies caught in trees, and Robert Long’s special antics. Later that summer, AEZ did Sonic Carhopping as a fundraiser for the first time in the Colony, raising over $400 for the fall semester and having a fun barbeque at Christina’s house afterward. The rest of the summer was spent in preparation for the fall, involving a lot of hair-pulling and despair that would eventually get sorted out (more later).

Fall 2001 brought us a small but weird pledge class headed up by Lilly Lu. This semester also saw the premiere of the Pledgemaster Assistant (or Assistant Pledgemaster) in the person of Chris Knight. This pledge class took us to Family Gateway for their pledge class service project, and brought us the APOscars as their fellowship. For the uninitiated, the APOscars was a simple idea similar to the infamous APGhetto: have each clan make it’s own original film, then we would all meet and vote on which film was the best. The execution of this idea proved harrowing however, with procrastination and Floridian voting methods rearing their ugly heads. The movies were . . . interesting, but funny, as the Cordaros did their own Behind the Music episode, the Cordaro Story, the Sparks parodied Star Trek in Star Trek p , the Search for Sparks, the Jordans did an interesting and high tech remake of the Wizard of Oz, and the Wongs did a take off of Charlie’s Angels called Wong’s Angels. A good time was had by all, even though no winners were ever declared do to some squirrely ballots (sorry Milton).

Fall 2001 saw the return of Math and Science Camp, led by Evelyn Walker. MSC had it’s own bit of drama occur when the school tried to cancel the project for insurance reasons. In the end, good triumphed and the project was carried on a month late, with ~70 kids coming to UTD to be wowed by slime, the Physics Circus, Math Puzzles, and much more. Fall 2001 also saw our most successful Trick or Treat for Canned Goods yet, with 14 student organizations combining to raise over 2500 cans in that one night. Special thanks go to Marsha Kitisrivorapan, who headed up the annual project.

This semester’s service calendar featured several new projects, including several 5k runs (for Wipe Out Kids Cancer, AIDS Lifewalk, Breast Cancer, etc.) where we had to get up at around 5:00 in the morning. For us college students, that is quite a challenge. We also did Random Acts of Kindness, where we split up into small teams and within our $10 budget, do something nice for people. One group paid for free parking in the Bookstore lot and another bought juice boxes and cookies to give out around campus. Our chapter also participated in the Sounds of Class carnival, running a bobbing for apples booth for all of the little children,

In October, four intrepid AEZers made the trek down to SFA again for the Region 7 Conference. Grant, Stephen, Evelyn, and Doug joined forces with the TCU contingent of Emily and Jessi for the trip down to Nacogdoches. While we were there, we attended a lot of cool workshops, including a martial arts/self defense demo that taught me (Doug) that my only chance against Steven is to hit him where it hurts and get away. Fun was had and all returned safely.

Fall also saw the return of the AEZ Cup with Omar at the wheel. Points were awarded for hours, newsletter articles, attendance at committee meetings, etc. The Sparks triumphed once again, this time in a landslide over the other three clans..

This semester, Russell began a weekly contest during the chapter meetings called Joke of the Week. The challenge was to tell a clean, funny joke for AEZ Cup points. Thus began Josh Choe’s now near-legendary string of bad jokes. Fortunately, other people besides Josh told jokes, so we had another funny moment during our chapter meetings.

No discussion of the Fall 2001 semester would be complete without mentioning The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s masterpiece hit the big screen in December 2001 with The Fellowship of the Ring, and AEZ was there. A rather large group of us went to the midnight showing on opening night, December 19^th, to see the movie and the weirdos that it brought out of the woodwork (including Jo Anne and her daughters).

Finally, Fall 2001 saw us say goodbye to Mike Shelby. Mike was an honorary brother of our chapter for many years, bringing us such phrases as, "Well, back in Zeta Beta," and "Sweet." Mike had recently become an advisor for our chapter, and we were all very sorry to see him go. Good luck Mike, we’ll see you around.

Chapter Officers

Pledge Class Namesake: Robert Hilliard

Pledge Class Gift: Digital Camera

Chapter Awards

Spring 2002

Spring 2002 was a great semester for AEZ, as we had tremendous success in several areas. Our Spring 2002 pledge class was terrific, with our new pledges jumping right into the action and never looking back. Starting with the pledge retreat at Eisenhower state park on Lake Texoma, the pledges showed a lot of initiative and quickly developed their own identity. Their fellowship at Main Event was quite successful,a nd their bake sale fundraiser raised over $300 for ??????????????.

In Service, Scouting University grew in leaps and bounds, bringing 110 Scouts onto campus to earn merit badges. We received many compliments from the Scoutmasters, both for the fact that we were offering such a program and for how well it was run. The Ugly Man on Campus contest was won by Dr. Edward Harpham, director of the honors program, who donated the money to the American Cancer Society. The chapter did several projects with the School of Engineering and Computer Science, helping them with their annual retreat/competition for high school students and volunteering at the annual TEAMS competition

Our treasurer in the spring semester, Beta, did a bang-up job of finding and organizing fundraisers. We made phone calls for the alumni office, sold refreshments at the Botball competition, and collected money from our members with the APO Workday fundraiser. All in all, she did a great job for the first time she accepted a nomination.

Another spring semester also brought more Sectional events, including the LDW at Austin College and Sectionals at UNT. Sectionals was a blast as we attended workshops on massage and hypnotism and introduced the rest of the section to the pledge class mantra (Don’t blame us, it’s all Gary’s fault) and the glory that is the penguin joke (ask Gary, I’ll spare you here). We quickly gained notoriety and took home the Chapter Spirit award for our antics.

One event that particularly stood out in the spring semester was the annual student organization awards banquet. It was here that the AEZ Chapter was awarded the 2001-2002 Student Organization of the Year award! Congratulations to the entire chapter for their efforts.

Chapter Officers

Pledge Class Namesake: Robyn and Jason Mercer

Pledge Class Gift: American Flag

Chapter Awards

Service to Scouting Award: Jo Anne Wright