By Mallory Sherwood, Features Editor
They haven’t felt the glow of the stage lights or waited in costumes in a small gym for Sing Song to begin in seven years and they won’t again this year.
Social clubs Trojans and Tri Kappa Gamma cannot participate in Sing Song this year because they don’t have the required 35 interested members.
TKG, a women’s social club, actually has more than enough members needed to participate but was unable to this year because the club is re-chartering this semester.
TKG member Erin Dimas, sophomore agribusiness major from Sacramento, Calif., is one of more than 30 women who pledged this semester.
“We didn’t feel that we had time to plan and undertake a Sing Song act while we were still trying to get to know each other,” Dimas said.
Membership grew by 300 percent this semester when TKG decided to recharter. Now the group has 44 members, which gives members hope for next year’s competition.
“We’ve already talked about doing Sing Song next year to get us back out there and into the scene of the alumni, so they and all of the clubs can see that we are still here,” Dimas said.
She also said the members are excited to finally be visible again on campus, and TKG is just coming out of its lull, a phase that all clubs eventually go through.
Members of TKG will take homemade treats to freshman participating in the freshmen class act during practice this week.
Mariah Angeny, president of TKG and senior accounting major from Deary, Idaho.
TKG plans to use brownies and cookies as encouragement to the underclassmen, as well as a marketing tool to get the club’s name out, Angeny said.
“We are trying to define ourselves again, so we are just taking everything as it comes,” she said. “We are definitely going to be involved next year in Sing Song though.”
Trojans plan to be involved in Sing Song next year as well, but the club cannot this year because it doesn’t have enough members.
Trojans have about 20 members, said Joshua Swarb, vice president of Trojans and senior biology pre-vet major from Monahans.
“We wanted to petition the minimum numbers policy to see if we could still participate, but looking at our members, many are not active, and those who are active are seniors who are really busy and couldn’t contribute much,” Swarb said. “We realized we wouldn’t make much of a show with our numbers this year.”
He also said they needed to advertise their club more heavily in the fall, like the other clubs do.
Trojans also aren’t participating this year because the members feel they often are overlooked, said Jeffrey Thigpen, president of Trojans and senior business management major from Troy.
“We don’t have enough members to participate, but we also didn’t receive proper notification about Sing Song meetings, events or anything going on with the production of Sing Song like other groups participating,” Thigpen said.
He said because the group was kicked off campus several years ago, it had been labeled as a bad club and been overlooked as a whole on campus, which contributed to its small number.
This year, members of Trojans are going to help with security for the second year in a row.
They hope to increase their membership next fall so they can participate in Sing Song.
“We want to be as active in as many things on campus that we can, but obviously, our numbers limit what we can be involved with,” Swarb said. “Until we have the numbers, we’ll remain an invisible club on campus.”
