The Theta-Psi Chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity

The Theta-Psi chapter placed 3rd overall in this years homecoming. The theme this year was "Written in the Stars". A Magic School Bus themed Lip Sync awarded us 3rd place while a space shuttle float awarded us 1st place. 

On September 10, twenty-three students at OCU ran to the Kappa Sigma house to become the chapter's newest pledge class.

This year's bid day came after a successful week of fall rush for the campus. Kappa Sigma hosted its traditional Margaritaville event on Wednesday night - an event inspired by the Jimmy Buffet song with snow cones, Bobo's chicken, and root beer pong. Formal rush nights followed on Thursday and Friday with alumni speakers Darryl Plunkett, Camal Pennington, and Spencer Kopf.

By Satuday morning, the 10th, bid day brought twenty-three new pledges to the fraternity, marking another successul fall rush. Pictured above are the pledges present for bid day morning along with their pledge pops, Chris Macella.

In July, ten undergraduate brothers and multiple alumni from the Theta-Psi chapter went to Las Vegas for Kappa Sigma's Grand Conclave, kindling their continued passion for this great order. From Wednesday to Saturday evening, the event was noted as "truly an incredible experience to see hundreds of other brothers giving up their precious summer days to learn how to make their chapters even greater." The brothers got to share in celebrating different accomplishments with other chapters and of course their own. Theta-Psi took home yet another Founders Award for Chapter Excellence and a Silver Bowl of Academic Excellence.

Kappa Sigma once again won the title of IFC Football Champions at OCU on April 22, 2011, for the fourth year in a row.

This year the games were held on OCU's soccer field. Because a third fraternity, Phi Gamma Delta, recently colonized at Oklahoma City University, three games were played to determine the IFC Champions. Kappa Sigma won the first game against Fiji 20-6. After Fiji then defeated Lambda Chi Alpha 21-19, Kappa Sigma dominated over Lambda Chi in the third game 20-13.

This marked the fourth year in a row Kappa Sigma has taken home the IFC Trophy. Kappa Sigma remains only fraternity who's name is engraved on the trophy since it was introduced in 2008.

On April 16, 2011, the Theta-Psi chapter and the Kappa-Pi chapter again united to push a bathtub from the OCU campus to UCO, a distance of almost 18 miles. The bathtub, which was fashioned with wheels and a steering wheel for use at the annual event, was followed on the street by a long line of cars (shown above) carrying participating brothers and girls. The event lasted from 9:00am to about 1:30pm and required a police escort.

This year, all funds raised benefitted the Veterans Families United Fund, an organization to help the United States military veteran families. Both houses worked to fundraise before the event.

On the evening of April 1st to April 2nd, three teams of Kappa Sigma participated in the Relay for Life at OCU.

Relay for Life has become an annual event on OCU's campus that began five years ago. Participants join teams and take turns walking around the OCU quad for twelve straight hours from 7:00pm to 7:00am, raising money to benefit the American Cancer Society. Teams also present gifts to cancer survivors at the event and participate in ceremonies showing their commitment to continue to fight cancer.

With over thirty teams from all parts of the OCU community, the event as a whole raised $40,125 toward the society, of which Kappa Sigmas alone raised hundreds of dollars. At the event itself, the Kappa Sigma teams hosted a basketball tournament and sold soft drinks, water, eye patches, moustaches, and glow sticks (the teams choose a pirate theme for the event). 

Shown above are brothers who, at 7:00am, tiredly volunteered to reveal the final total of funds raised on stage at the Relay.

Theta Psi took home both 1st place and Best in Show in OCU's 2011 Spring Sing Competition. It was an amazing performance, and we're so proud of our brothers who took part in the show.

Spring Sing is an OCU tradition that has dated back since before the founding of our chapter in 1967. The past two years in a row, Kappa Sigma has placed 2nd and 3rd in the event, respectively, making this the first time in recent past that the chapter has won.

On Saturday, January 29th, the brothers of Theta-Psi welcomed 5 new pledges during the Spring 2011 Bid Day. Brothers and Sorority girls showed up the morning of to welcome the pledges home.

Pictured are the 5 new pledges: Austin Schwinn, James Johnson, Kyle Mechini, Everett Strunk, and Jake Fortner. With their Pops, Patrick Bellah pictured in the middle.

On Friday, December 10th, Theta-Psi celebrated Kappa Sigma Founder's Day with the rest of the Oklahoma District up at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. About thirteen brothers drove up for a formal dinner with speeches from District Grand Master Shaun Angley and the new Grand Master of the Kappa-Pi chapter.

At the banquet, the winners of the 2010 Scholarship-Leadership Awards were announced. Five brothers from Theta-Psi won the named $500 scholarship: Brothers Cameron Bell, Brandon Grayson, Drew McNichols, John Riesenberg, and CJ Vaughn. Only 45 such awards were given out this year.

In addition to the named scholarship, many other brothers received Certificates of Merit, congratulating them for their contributions to the fraternity.

On December 4, 2010, the brothers of Theta-Psi invited their parents to come to OCU to introduce them to the fraternity.

The parent's day event has been a fall tradition for the past few years, starting in 2008. This year, the fraternity hosted a semi-formal dinner in the Great Hall in the Tom and Brenda McDaniel University Center. Parents heard speeches from the Theta-Psi President Ethan Davis and SGA President John Riesenberg and watched music and acting performances by multiple brothers. Afterward brothers and their parents went to watch the theater school's production of A Christmas Carol.

On November 20, the Theta-Psi chapter participated in Oklahoma City University's annual service project, OneGive.

OneGive was established in 2008 through the efforts of Brother Jeff Riles, who was president of the Student Government Association at that time. The service project was originally formed to have students help OCU staff complete different projects around the campus, thus saving money for the university. Since then, OneGive has grown into a campus tradition where different student organizations do service work to better their campus.

This year, OneGive took on a Christmas theme as students helped decorate light posts with wreaths and garland and put up Christmas trees. About 30 brothers showed up for the event, teaming up with Alpha Chi Omega sorority to decorate. 

On November 6, the Theta-Psi chapter placed second overall at OCU's annual homecoming competition.

Homecoming is a tradition at Oklahoma City University where, along with cheering on the basketball, volleyball, and soccer teams, organizations around campus compete in a variety of competitions such as window painting, banner painting, building a spirit monument, and putting on a ten-minute lip sync show. After the basketball game on Saturday, alumni judges give awards to the best organizations in each of those categories along with a sweepstakes award, which ranks the organizations overall.

The theme for this year was "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue," which was chosen by the Student Activities Council of SGA. Kappa Sigma took that theme to create a sandcastle-based monument, a Blue's Clues-based lip sync, along with a unique banner and window painting. The fraternity won third place for their banner, second place and "people's choice" in their lip sync, and tied for first in their spirit monument, ranking second overall in the sweepstakes.

The past two years Kappa Sigma has placed third overall, making this year a new record for the current undergraduates in the House.

To top the celebration, Brother Kevin Keeling was crowned Homecoming King, become the seventh Kappa Sigma in a row to hold the title.

The fall 2010 pledge class, for their fundraising project, decided to try something new and unique. On October 30th, the pledges and brothers bought a used car from a salvage yard and hosted a "car bash."

The event occurred at the tailgate to the OCU Stars soccer game, which helped participation in both events. The chapter raised funds by having soccer viewers pay $3 for 15 seconds of bashing the car with either a baseball bat, sledge hammer, or crowbar, along with accepting donations.

The chapter successfully raised $193 at the event, with added benefits of improving relations with OCU Athletics and, of course, getting to release their anger on an old car.

Proceeds from the car bash will go toward purchasing a new house for the Theta-Psi chapter. With a house of 113 people, the brothers and pledges are unable to hold successful meetings in the current residence on 2412 N. Virginia Ave, making the effort an immediate necessity. For more information about Theta-Psi Chapter fundraising, contact John Riesenberg at jriesenberg.stu@my.okcu.edu.

Thirty undergraduate members from the chapter went to the University of Oklahoma in Norman on Saturday, October 16, for the first fundraiser of the semester. 

Both brothers and pledges spent the day working security for the OU vs. Iowa State football game at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Their jobs ranged from checking bags at the stadium gates to checking credentials in the VIP suites.

The chapter raised roughly three thousand dollars at the event. All funds raised will go toward a down payment on a new chapter house. The house at 2412 N. Virginia cannot sufficiently hold the 116 undergraduate members, so the brothers began their efforts to raise funds for a new house by working the football game.

Feel free to contact Brother John Riesenberg at jriesenberg.stu@my.okcu.edu for further questions about Theta-Psi fundraising.

On Saturday, October 2nd, at ten o'clock in the morning, the brothers and pledges continued a chapter tradition by walking up and down 23rd Street and picking up trash from the side of the road.

The chapter "adopted" 23rd Street from the intersections of Pennsylvania Avenue to Classen Boulevard years ago, and since then members have cleaned the street roughly once per semester. The effort enhances the aesthetics of the local community and provides an easy way to increase the chapter's community service hours.

On October 2nd, twenty-five brothers and pledges attended the event.

On Saturday, September 11, 2010, the Inter Fraternal Council at OCU held its Fall 2010 Bid Day. Rush chair Matt Mason prepared for the event by hosting numerous events, including the traditional Margaritaville and Wet n' Wild for rush week informal nights.

On the morning of the 11th, undergraduate brothers, alumni, and sorority girls from all three houses showed up to welcome home the new pledges, and the results were historic. 44 people ran from the chapel to the Kappa Sigma house that morning, with 7 more receiving their Kappa Sigma bid over the next few days. 

Last year at the fall Bid Day the fraternity welcomed 46 new pledges, making this year's rush effort an even greater success and setting a new rush record for the Theta-Psi Chapter. This brought the house to a total of 122 undergraduate members.

On July 16-18th, 2010, Theta-Psi was named one of the top chapters in the nation at Kappa Sigma’s Leadership Conference in Las Vegas.  The chapter received the Founder’s Circle Award, which is given to chapters that are exceptional in academic performance, community service, recruitment, campus involvement and involvement with the fraternity on a national scale.

Out of 268 Kappa Sigma chapters in the U.S. and Canada, only six received this award, putting Theta-Psi in the top 2 percent of chapters in North America.

In addition to this esteemed award, the chapter received the Silver Bowl Award, which is given to chapters that have maintained a higher grade point average than the all-men’s average for six consecutive semesters. For the past spring semester, the chapter had its highest grade point average in eight semesters and had the highest GPA out of all the fraternities on campus. The chapter was also recognized for its recruiting efforts. It was ranked 19th out of all of the chapters for adding 49 new members the past school year.

Also, several Kappa Sigma members received individual awards. Senior music business major Cameron Bell received an award for his outstanding performance as the chapter’s previous vice president of public affairs and was named Kappa Sigma’s Master of the Ritual. Senior economics and finance major and current Student Government Association President John Riesenberg received an award for his performance as the chapter’s vice president of administration. Former student body President Camal Pennington was named Undergraduate Brother of the Year for Area 4, which includes more than 50 chapters in the Southwest region.

Kappa Sigma again won the Inter-Fraternity Council Football Championship on April 25, 2010. The game was held on the field at Bishop McGuinness High School, where Kappa Sigma took on Lambda Chi Alpha, the other fraternity on campus.

For the third year in a row, Kappa Sigma dominated the competition and kept the IFC Trophy in the trophy room. Brothers such as Tyler Morrissey, who called the plays for the team, and Joel Cranmer, who successfully blocked three pass attempts by Lambda Chi, led the team to victory.

Brothers from the Theta-Psi chapter joined brothers of Kappa-Pi (UCO) on April 24th to raise funds for the Make a Wish Foundation at the annual Bath Tub Push.

At the event, brothers push a bath tub on wheels from the Theta-Psi house on OCU's campus to the Kappa-Pi house at UCO, roughly thirteen miles away. A police escort accompanied the bath tub along with a stream of cars carrying brothers from both houses. The police blocked off a lane of traffic to allow for the brothers to pass.

The event raised close to four thousand dollars toward the Make a Wish Foundation through the help of each chapter. Donations from local organizations ranging from restaurants to the campus student governments were accepted.

On Thursday, April 22, 2010, Brother John Riesenberg (shown left) took the oath of office after being elected by the students at OCU as the President of the Student Government Association.

Brother Riesenberg's only opposition was Brother Michael Roselle, a senior marking major and member of the fall 2009 pledge class, so it was inevitable a Kappa Sigma would hold the office.

Riesenberg became the third Kappa Sigma in a row to hold the office of Student Body President. The previous two presidents, Brother Camal Pennington and Brother Jeff Riles (both shown above)  have since graduated and are both attending law school at the University of Oklahoma.