By Lori Bredemeyer, Copy Editor
Spring pledging began for social clubs Tri Kappa Gamma, Pi Kappa and Trojans with Bid Night Friday and will continue through February.
Amanda Spell, coordinator of student organizations and activities, said Bid Night had no complications and that she is pleased with the number of students who pledged each club.
TKG took eight pledges, Pi Kappa took 10, and Trojans took two. Spell said the total number of spring pledges is about the same as last year, but fewer clubs are participating, so the pledge class for each club is larger.
She also said the clubs usually take spring pledges to build the number of members.
“For the most part they’re getting their numbers up, and they can handle doing it because they’ve got a smaller membership,” Spell said. “It’s just a good time for them to take on more people.”
Jeffrey Thigpen, junior business management major from Troy and Trojans officer, said the size of the pledge class is unimportant.
“Both of the guys that we are taking have already developed friendships with us, and we know their character,” Thigpen said in an e-mail. “We know that they truly want to be Trojans, and that is the most important thing to have in a pledge.”
Erin Bricker, senior speech pathology major from Houston and president of TKG, said in an e-mail this pledge class is different from recent other ones.
“In the past few years, we have had pledge classes with only a handful of people,” she said. “God has blessed our club this time around with eight fabulous women, and I am so excited to see the things they can do for Kappas.”
Although the clubs follow all the same rules and procedures for spring pledging as they do in the fall, Spell said there is a different feeling during the spring.
“It’s much more relaxed than fall pledging tends to be, and it does seem to be a more relaxed process,” she said. “In the fall every club is participating; there’s 350 to 400 people who are participating in the process. It’s just a really different dynamic that’s interesting to watch.”
Spring pledging also tends to draw older students who have considered pledging for a while, instead of just pledging because “it is the cool thing to do,” said Darren Curry, junior marketing major from Oklahoma City and president of Pi Kappa.
“This pledge class seems to be very involved on campus in other organizations,” Curry said in an e-mail. “This will help our club in our networking capabilities.”
