Epic Weekend

This last weekend was definitely a contender for best weekend of my college career. I was reminded how blessed I am with the friends and opportunities I have here at PSU. Friday capped off Sigma's week of sisterhood with our spring initiation ceremony. Saturday, I spent the morning participating in Hearts and Hammers. It is a community service project the technology department runs to help with building projects and fixing up houses in the community. My group helped a woman by painting her home and fixing her deck. That afternoon we celebrated our Founders Day with Tri Sigma. I was given the Golden Violet award for being a leader in Sigma and throughout campus. I was also given the honor of the Mabel Lee Walton award which is the Outstanding Tri Sigma Sister of the Year. After the Founders Day celebration, it was time to get ready for my last Sigma Formal as a collegiate member.
I must say, this was the best Sigma formal I have ever been to. Maybe because one of my best friends planned it, maybe because we had an awesome group of people in attendance, maybe because I had an incredible date, or maybe all of the above! I was so happy to be able to dress up and spend a fun night with my closest friends. Dinner was delicious, and the people at my table kept me laughing the whole night. Here we are posing for a picture with our dates.One of the things that made this formal extra special was that I did not find my dress in a department store or boutique. I actually designed my dress and my mom sewed it for me! I had to pose for a full dress shot with my fashionista friends Mandy and Sarah.Lucky for me, several of my friends who had graduated were invited back to join us for our special evening! I was super excited to see my friend Jordan back in town. All in all, I had an absolute blast.Sunday we had our last Crimson Club meeting of the year. We welcomed the new members for the 2010-2011 school year. We shared our favorite memories of Crimson Club and ate our last meal with Dr. Scott and his wife. Mandy and I posed with the Scotts before we left. This experience with Crimson Club has been a pleasure. Having the chance to spend time with the President and his family, and learn more about PSU has been unforgettable.

True Life: I am a Pitt State Greek

This last week was our annual Greek Week! The week is always filled with competitions and fun to the max. All of the Sororities and Fraternities compete on campus for the title of Greek Week Champions! Before Greek Week started, Sigmas won the intramural flag football championship! That was just the boost we needed going into this competitive week!During Greek Week we have several different competitions. First is Canned Art. For Canned Art, each house designs a sculpture out of canned goods and foods that can be donated to a shelter. The sculpture must go along with the them of Greek Week. This year's theme was True Life: I am a Pitt State Greek (TV theme.) The Sigmas got 1st place in canned art for our Survivor themed design. Next, the houses dasign a banner to be hung on campus to advertise Greek Week to the rest of campus. Sigma did a spin-off of The Real Housewives shows and our banner said "The Real Greeks of Crawford County." We got 3rd in banner. A new competition this year was house decorating. Each house had to decorate the front of their house in $30 or less. We did a Sesame Street theme. It said "This week is sponsored by the Greek alphabet." Each of the Sesame Street characters we painted was holding a sign with a name of one of our houses on campus. We got 1st! Later in the week we have Greek Games. The games consist of tug-of-war, pie eating contests, and relays. Sigmas took 1st in the games this year as well. My sigma family was at the Greek games, so we took a family picture!Thursday, I took a break from Greek Week to attend the Leadership and Awards banquet. This is where top honors for the school are announced. This year the Ali Kemp Fashion Show won PSU Program of the Year for the 2nd year in a row! Mandy, Tyler, Me, Michael, and Kait were there to accept the award.I also was awarded the PSU Outstanding Leader on Campus. It was an honor to be recognized for my involvement, and I got to share that moment with my parents which made it even more special.Back to Greek Week, Friday is the biggest competition and finale of the week, Airband. Airband is a huge lip-sync and dance competition. Sigmas got 2nd in Airband and 1st in Greek Goddess which determined that we were the Greek Week Champions! It was wonderful to see all of our hard work paid off when we got the championship trophy.The day after Greek Week was Sigma's annual Mom's day. Mom's day is when we invite all of our Moms to come to town. This year we made coaster sets and played some fun games to see how well we really knew our moms! The event was a total success and my mom won 2009-2010 Mom of the Year!

Here, There, and Everywhere

This semester has been crazy busy, so I have lots of updating to do! This is my final semester at Pitt State and I am amazed at how fast it is slipping away from me. In just two short months I am off to the "real world." I am looking forward to everything ahead of me, but there is still so much to do here at PSU before I leave.
On January 30, Presidential Emerging Leaders Program hosted their annual Basic Leadership Training. BLT is an all day event for any student, but encouraged for any officer or leader on campus. The day consists of seminars and activities to promote better leadership skills and finding personal leadership styles. It is a fun opportunity to get to know people in your organizations better and build connections with other leaders on campus.
BLT provides lunch for everyone in attendance. I ate lunch with the Officer team for Sigma Phi Epsilon. These characters had just finished a leadership session about communication. Those headbands were previously blindfolds that they used during the session!The first week of February was Tri Sigma Sisterhood week. Each semester, the sisterhood chairs plan a week of fun activities that allow us to get away from our busy lives and spend some time as sisters. The first night was a game night at the sorority house. Everyone brought their favorite board games and the competition was intense! The competitive vibe continued into the second night when we went to the bowling alley!
The third night we decorated Valentine's Day cookies and distributed plates of decorated cookies to all of the other Greek houses on campus. The last night, we relaxed and curled up at the Sigma house for a movie night.That weekend I continued all things Greek by going to Greek Conference in Omaha, Nebraska! Each spring, Campus Crusade for Christ holds a conference for Greek students only. There were students from Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri. It was fun to meet other Greeks and find out what is going on in their houses and on their campuses. AJ, Kaylee and I had a blast meeting everyone and getting to know each other better. We definitely came back with all sorts of inside jokes, and new ideas for our sorority!
Last week was Gamma Epsilon Tau initiation. GET is an honor society for people in the Graphics and Imaging Technologies department. My friend Michelle and I got initiated along with about 20 other students. The organization is currently working on planning the annual department banquet that is coming up this weekend, and recruiting more students to come to Pittsburg State.

Why Fighting Like a Girl Can Be a Good Thing!

Ali Kemp was a lifeguard at a neighborhood pool in Kansas City. While life guarding one day, she was brutally murdered in the pool house. As a result of this tragedy, her family vowed to do everything in their power to make sure that would never happen to another woman. The solution: The Ali Kemp Educational Foundation (TAKE). The foundation teaches self-defense to women and girls so that they will be aware of how to protect themselves in violent situations.

Ali's father and brother were both members of Sigma Phi Epsilon while attending college. In 2007, Sigma Phi Epsilon adopted TAKE foundation as a national philanthropy. Since then, the Sig Ep chapter at Pitt State has teamed up with my Tri Sigma chapter to raise money for the foundation.

Because Ali was buried in her prom dress, we host a prom fashion show in honor of her and offer a free self defense class for all of the girls and women in attendance immediately following the show. This year we doubled our attendance and money raised for the foundation and look forward to seeing continued growth.

My job each year is to help with promoting the event, and I also take on the male side of the fashion show. Each year, several Sig Eps volunteer to escort the models on the runway and show off the latest fashion in tuxes. I am in charge of getting them fitted and helping them during the show. I had the pleasure of working with these gentelmen this year. Lucky for me, they are some of my best friends, which made it even more fun!
Sigmas volunteer to model the dresses. This year over 60 different dresses and styles were modeled. The ladies looked so beautiful!
Ali's father, Roger Kemp, joined us the day of the fashion show and was able to share his story along with some words of encouragement. It was empowering to meet him and hear the things he had to say and the heart he has for helping others.
Then the girls strutted their stuff! They did such an awesome job! We even made the school paper!

Busy Bee

Tri Sigma has been keeping me extra busy lately. In November my calendar was filled with Sigma events galore! It all started with the Panhellinic Leaf Rake. The leaf rake is an event hosted once a year. The entire Greek community at Pitt puts on their working shoes and heads out to rake the town, one yard at a time! It is a great opportunity to get to know people in other houses and be a part of helping out the community. The people in Pittsburg are so supportive of the school, that it is always awesome to give back and say thank you.

I am from a town with a college, but honestly, if you drove through town, you would not know the college existed. They get very little support from the community. Pittsburg is the opposite story. Every street you turn down has a gorilla somewhere or a sign of support for PSU. The town would bend over backwards for the school to help us start projects and develop. I am so grateful for the support the community members offer the school, and the support I feel as a student.

November also marked the date for Sigma Retreat. Each year, the sorority takes a day to get out of the town of Pittsburg and do something new, fun, and different. This year we went to CoCoa Key Water Resort in Kansas City! We spent the whole day relaxing in the lazy river, plummeting down water slides, getting drenched in the fort, and chilling in the cabana. It was an absolute blast getting to know each other and taking a daycation from school and classwork!


The last major event for the month of November was Sigma Formal. I like to think of formal as prom for college students. It is an opportunity to bust out the dresses we wore in high school, and get out on the dance floor! With dinner, awards, and a DJ, the night is something that is looked forward to every semester. Dressing up is fun, and spending that fun night with fun friends is a guaranteed pleasure.

Sigma formal marked the end of November. This means the end of the semester is quickly approaching, and final projects are being assigned, so the work has just begun for me. These next few weeks will be overflowing with graphic design and photography projects, and a chance to prove that I have learned and developed my skills this semester... I hope my teachers agree!