Kappa Kappa Psi is a fraternity for college and university band members in the United States. It was founded on November 27, 1919, on Thanksgiving Day, at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College. Tau Beta Sigma, National Honorary Band Sorority, has been recognized as a sister organization since 1947. The two organizations share National Headquarters in Stillwater Station, a converted historical Santa Fe rail depot.
About Kappa Kappa Psi in brief
Kappa Kappa Psi is a fraternity for college and university band members in the United States. It was founded on November 27, 1919, on Thanksgiving Day, at Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College. Tau Beta Sigma, National Honorary Band Sorority, has been recognized as a sister organization since 1947. The two organizations share National Headquarters in Stillwater Station, a converted historical Santa Fe rail depot that was purchased by the fraternity and sorority in 1991. Since 1919, more than 66,000 men and women have been initiated into Kappa Kappa PSI, with nearly 6,000 collegiate members active today. Members include President Bill Clinton; composers John Williams and John Philip Sousa; conductor William Revelli; and jazz pianist and bandleader Count Basie. The fraternity grew rapidly in its first years. Within ten years, there were 27 chapters spanning from the University of Washington in the west to Duke University in the east. Only 14 were installed during the Great Depression, while World War II put a further damper on fraternal activities. Because of the number of men serving in the military, many programs opened up to women during this time. At Texas Tech, a local sorority for women was chartered as an auxiliary chapter of the fraternity, which was supported by founder Frank A. Martin, who was serving as National Executive Secretary. On January 25, 1944, Martin wrote to fellow founder, William Scroggs, to grant membership to some girls who are coming into the band.
Within the next five years, some boys and girls will be playing second fiddle to boys, and we will be able to grant some membership to girls as well. The petition was successful and women were allowed to join the fraternity as auxiliary chapters of TauBeta Sigma. The women were chartered to be chartered in the band chapter of Kappa Beta Sigma to be supported by Frank Martin as an Auxiliary Chapter of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. The men were able to continue to play second fiddles in the second band, which they did for the rest of their lives. The first band members were selected from Bohumil Makovsky’s band, from Oklahoma A&M College, and from Andrew Franklin Martin, Raymond David Shannon, Clyde DeWitt Haston, Clayton Everett Soule, Carl Anderson Stevens, William Houston Coppedge, Dick Hurst, George Asher Hendrickson, and Iron Hawthorne Nelson. Only five chapters remained active during the war: Alpha Beta at Butler University, Alpha Omicron at Texas Technological College, Alpha Iota at Colorado at Boulder, and Alpha Pi at theUniversity of Tulsa. The Grand Council granted those chapters that were forced to suspend their activities “war furlough’ so that instead of treating the chapter as inactive, their service would be honored. War furloughed enabled a chapter to seal its records and keep its materials in safekeeping for the duration of the war. In 1943 and 1945, the 1943 and 1944 national conventions were canceled.
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This page is based on the article Kappa Kappa Psi published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 15, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
