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History of the Alpha Theta
Chapter
ALL NEW!! Alumni Check this out!!
One night back in
the fall of 1997 an idea was formed...
The idea of Sigma Alpha started one night over at the Alpha Gamma Rho
house, Some friends were hanging out, and Talia Blair was on the
front porch talking, as usual, and somehow they got on the subject of
Ceres and how she almost rushed in their first rush class. Matt Shute asked if she had heard of another Agricultural
organization called Sigma Alpha. She said no, and he said that they met
some SA sisters from VA Tech when the brothers there got re-chartered.
He then decided to challenge Talia.
Matt asked her if she was interested in starting a Sigma Alpha at
NC State. She said that she
was always up for a good challenge so she said she would talk to some
girls and see if they were interested.
Josh Witherspoon was also out on the porch and said people have
tried in the past and no one had ever gotten a chapter started.
She talked so some people to see if there was interest and
proceeded to have our first "info night."
. After we got started
she met some of the people that were getting the interest groups together
for SA before her and they were so glad to see that we finally got
everything going.
We became a S.I.D. early in the spring of 1998 after we recruited the
minimum number of girls. We
had very strict requirements as a S.I.D.
We had to dress professional at EVERY meeting, we had to conduct a
certain amount of professional development events, and we had to do
several philanthropy projects.
We completed our SID requirements in record time, but that is to be
expected from such a dedicated group of women.
Founding sister Georgia Deal says that "the reason we all felt
so strongly was, of course, to provide an alternative setting for women to
bond, build a network of professional and personal support, and to gain
recognition on campus and in the Raleigh Community for being professional,
dedicated young women."
Our
first officers were
Talia
Blair - President
April
Mathews 1st Vice President
Stephanie
Staton - 2nd Vice President
Georgia
Deal -- Philanthropy Chair
Our First major philanthropy was in March of 1998.
We participated in Service Raleigh, a day of service throughout
Wake county. We were assigned
to Hilltop Home, a home for developmentally handicapped children. They
asked us to clean their playground area, paint, and landscape their
grounds. It was a hard day of
work, but rewarding in the extreme.
Also
that spring we had a National Board visit.
We spent the morning doing teambuilding activities and we were
split into groups and asked to design the ideal sigma Alpha sister.
This was a rewarding activity because it gave us all something to
strive for. We all wanted to
be the ideal sigma alpha sister.
After a summer off we came back ready to complete our SID requirements.
Our activation was set for September 26, 1998, after a year of hard work
and dedication we were ready to become sisters in Agriculture.
National Board members Jennifer Maurer and Kelly Scher arrived on
Friday, 25 to perform the ceremony and administer the "test." We spent the Saturday morning doing intensive teambuilding
activities, such as "the chemical spill" where we had to
transfer a bucket of popcorn kernels to another bucket without touching
the buckets and without spilling the kernels.
Our tools were a bicycle tire inner tube, and two pieces of rope.
It was hard, but we pulled together and put aside our differences
and got the job done. We only
spilled a few kernels. By now
it was time for lunch! Hooray for pizza.
After lunch we had to take the dreaded test.
We had to make an 80% in order to be activated as charter sisters.
We were all pleasantly surprised to find that the dreaded test
wasn’t really that hard, but it makes you appreciate being activated
when you finally pass it. After
the test we all went home to prepare for the big event!! Our ceremony.
Where we received our pins and learned all the secrets of Sigma
Alpha.
After the ceremony we proceeded to Schaub hall for a reception with our
friends, families and a few AGR brothers.
We owe them many thanks for all of the support they have given us
over the years. Thanks guys we love you!!
Even though we completed the strict SID requirements, the hard work wasn’t over... We had to write our bylaws. This proved to be a rather harrowing experience. We accomplished this task during a fall bylaws meeting. When we broke for lunch, founding sisters Lauren Hix and Georgia Abernethy broke their cars! Needless to say it was an interesting day. The rest of the bylaws were written at the beach during our first ever Sisterhood retreat on Oak Island, near South Port, NC. We had SO much fun during this retreat. We learned A LOT about each other. We left the beach feeling as close as real sisters.
We held our first RUSH when we returned to civilization. It was a successful rush, but we learned some very valuable lessons from it.
The sisters worked very hard to get to where we are today, and we are still reaping the rewards of all of our hard work.
The Founding Sisters of the Alpha Theta Chapter
| Georgia Abernethy | Cameron Lowe |
| Talia Blair | Sarah Mattson |
| Heather Boyette | Katie Mohney |
| Joy Goforth | Lizzy Pereira |
| Lauren Hix | Nikki Sturges |
| Allison Hoffman | Dana Tyler |
| Megan Jones | Stephanie Wolford |
| April Killebrew | Samantha Wright |
| Jessica Lima |
