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Photo by Bob Sebree
Ted Reed, a senior, and Christy Brinkly, a sophomore, cool off their legs in the “lagoon" built for the Sigma Phi Epsilon rush party last week.
Izods and Ags: no place but A&M
By SCOT K. MEYER
Battalion Staff
The house is like a pool of noise
in a desert of silence.
Sounds — people talking,
laughing, perhaps some familiar
rock music — are reassuring to be
sure, and yet...
And yet you are the outsider.
Which is bound to make you a bit
uneasy. You only heard about this
thing at all from a friend of a friend,
and you don’t know anything (real
ly) about anyone here, and besides,
haven’t you heard that these people
are, if not quite decadent and de
praved communists, at least not
particularly wholesome?
And this is their party. They call
the shots here. You can’t just
breeze in and check out the beer
first thing, and then nonchalantly
standing by the door, guarding it,
and even though they aren’t paying
a whole lot of attention to you now,
as you walk up the drive, you know
they will expect you to say some
thing (no telling what) in the way of
introduction before you even get in.
So with all of this (and you know
you don’t even have the right kind of
shirt), you are a little bit nervous.
But just a little bit, because this is
yusf a party, and you’ve been to par
ties before.
And after all, these people are
not just going to check you out; you
are going to check them out. So with
this in mind you step up and intro
duce yourself, sign your name on
the sheet and get yourself a name
tag.
You are now a rushee attending
your first fraternity rush party.
Most fraternity members agree
to meet and get to know the poten
tial fraternity members.
Beer and punch flow freely at
rush parties, and the actives, or cur
rent members of the fraternity, cir
culate and try to meet all the
rushees.
Tommy Rogers of Kappa Alpha,
whose house is in Bryan, said a
fraternity will usually have a series
of rush parties, and actives try to
meet rushees at more than one
party.
"We try to find out more about
them than just where they’re from
and what their majors are," he said.
Jeff Steen of Phi Gamma Delta,
or Fiji, said most people could put
up a “pretty good front at parties.”
That’s why Fijis, he said, “go alot on
recommendations.”
"The purpose of ail this is not to
find out whose parents are the rich
est, or anything like that," Steen
said. "What we’re looking for are
the things you look for in a friend.”
Not everyone who rushes is
accepted by the fraternity, and not
everyone who attends the rush par
ties has any interest in joining the
frat.
“Hell no, I’m not joining,” one
party-goer said. “I’m just here to en
joy the party.”
Steen said the frats don’t mind
people who are just there to enjoy
the party, as long as they don’t
come to start trouble. Although the
rush parties function mainly to re
cruit new members, to a lesser de
gree they are an open house.
“We get alot of people who come
to the parties thinking that fraterni
ties are all communists or whatever,
and are out to destroy A&M,” Steen
said. “Most of them leave with a
different opinion.”
For those who are interested in
joining the frat, though, the goal is to
advance from a rushee to a pledge.
Robert Curtin of Phi Kappa Alpha
said this change occurs when a
rushee is given a bid, or invited to
join the frat.
Curtin said a rush committee
meets during rush week and de
cides who will get bids.
The fraternity rush system is
“kind of easy going,” Steen said.
Sorority rush, which takes place
before school starts, is said to be
better organized. And since sorority
rules prohibit alcohol or men at their
rush parties, they are also said to be
less fun.
look around to see what’s what. No that rush, which takes place during
way. the first two weeks of school, is de-
Because they’ve got someone signed to allow fraternity members
X.
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