Pi Kappa Alpha/Alpha Phi Super Homecoming - As observed by me, Gene White. Alpha Phi super homecoming started for me arriving in Ames and going straight to the Pike House. I walked around the house and was very happy to see the condition of the house! The outside of the house looks GREAT! So does the back of the house, the back yard and the parking lot!
I then drove to campus and to the student union, where I took some pics of the Great Hall where the Four Sequins WON Varieties! (Jack Kennison, John Haut, Don Johnson and Gene White could really SING!) I told a couple of coeds selling Tshirts in the hall that I was a part of a singing group that performed in the hall and won the WHOLE THING at Varieties in 1972. I said I was a Pike and they said hey, we heard the Pikes are coming back! That was SO GREAT to HEAR!!
Friday, was the Pike Golf tourney at the Ames Country Club and it was COLD. I played with Rod Reagan, Jack Kennison and Mike Risk. There was around 18 foursomes or around 72 Pikes. Our foursome was led by Jack Kennison who is a really GOOD golfer. They had an outdoor grill at the turn that had great hot dogs and burgers. At about 14 holes, the temperature kept dropping and then it started to rain. Mike Risk looked at us and said brothers I am frozen and we all nodded yes so we drove in!
We all met in the club to tell stories and to thaw out! Jack Teboda, Babs and Chuck Drake showed up. So great to see and chat with those guys!
The Pike Banquet started a couple of hours later. Ames Country Club did a great job on the set up and the food! I estimate around 80 to 90 brothers and their dates there. Past National Pi Kappa Alpha President Reverend Dr. Jerry Askew gave the major speech who was awesome in his presentation! A Pike from national described what Pi Kappa Alpha meant to him and it was very very good! I sat with Jack Teboda, Bab, Chuck Drake, Dave Pattee and Mark Powers. We had a great time telling old stories!
The 40 new Pike pledges were there and after meeting them briefly I can say that I think we really have a great group of Pikes to build with!!
The next day was game day and we all started at the Pike House. It looks AWESOME! The living room looked GREAT and the dining room was very very nice! They had a house meeting going over the new plans for the new expansion before tailgating started.
The tailgating tent was in a great location right in front of the stadium entrance. They had a buffet set up with great food and drinks. Plenty of Pikes were there including Jim Mulvihill (who was mascot Cy in his day!) It looked like to me that everyone had a GREAT time!
It was my first game at Jack Trice Stadium and it was an AWESOME experience!! The music when the team came out and the whole experience with the student section going crazy was an unbelievable time brothers! And of course it was a close game that came out RIGHT! ISU beats OSU and at the end having the students run out on the field was a site I will never forget!!
After the game we had a pizza party to end the day at the house! The pizza was good and the company around the tables was better! I got a chance to talk with Swede for about an hour. I sat with Roger Curnow, Steve Sheedy who has not changed on bit and Bob Manning. Had a ton of laughs!!
Until this year, I
have not ever been
back for one of the
Super Homecoming
but I got to say I
don’t think I could
have imagined a
better time.
Geno
Rod Gov Regan '71, Roger Curnow '69, Jack Kennison '71, and Gene White '69
Scott and Delores Harmes flew into St. Louis specifically to drive with me to Super Homecoming! Jeff Mueller flew in and met us in Ames to join the party weekend!
We arrived too late for golf, so we all proceeded to Ames Country Club for our Pike dinner and cocktail hour.
After an awkward hour of placing name tags with faces as we remember each other, we got ushered into our dinner to celebrate our re-installation of our glorious chapter.
Our native son Mike Risk kicked off an evening of national and local brothers that have been working tirelessly creating a culture of new brothers we can be proud of again!
Saturday started with a tailgate prior to the
game. Many additional brothers and wives
joined us to breathe life to a history of
brotherhood second to none.
Perfect sunshine allowed a capacity crowd
to bite their nails on the way to VICTORY!
Storming the field was a forgone
conclusion after beating a Top 10 team in
the country!!
- Steve Sheedy ‘71
The Fabulous New Class of Alpha Phi Pikes. - John (Swede)Frantz I recently attended the 2021 Pike Super Homecoming. I got to meet 10 new Alpha Phi pledges.
What a hoot!
All of them were bright and full of energy about the Pike road ahead of them! They looked at me like I was 100 years old and had Pike wisdom to share… So they said, tell us about your traditions.
It was surreal. It was like talking to younger versions of yourself, before you had lived in the house. So, their eyes wide open, I told them what a pledge skip was.. ... that a younger Pledge Class had showed up at a restaurant where I was waiting tables in 1973 and told me they had a surprise for me in the parking lot. There, I was "invited" into a waiting Greyhound bus which took us to a Pike house in Michigan for the weekend!
I was shocked, of course, but in truth I was pretty sure I was going to have the time of my life. Which I did. I told the new guys that the skipping pledge class had to write a pledge skip song and sing it to the actives when they got back. They were mystified.
And what I saw in their eyes was this, they were ready for a
brotherhood experience. Ready to win as Pikes on the ISU
campus. Ready to carry on what had come before.
So, if you are wondering if we can find good guys to repopulate
the house, the young men I met on Friday night, I would have
pledged in a heartbeat in my time. There is reason for optimism
Brothers! - John Swede Frantz '72
Swede on the pledge skip bus in 1973