By Mallory Sherwood, Managing Editor

Students ran around campus Friday night and early Saturday as social clubs initiated more than 250 pledges during a weekend filled with secret activities, competitions, food and history lessons.

For the first time in several years, all clubs made it through the night smoothly without injuries or illnesses.

GATA, one of the oldest social clubs on campus, welcomed 17 pledges, who will be seen wearing bright red skirts, shoes and lipstick for the next several weeks.

“Every pledge class is different, and we have to come at them with a different attitude to adapt to who they are,” said Abra Barker, GATA president and senior integrated marketing communications major from Flower Mound.

She said the pledge class is different this year because it includes juniors, sophomores, transfers and students from all types of life. She said this year the Flames, as the pledges are called, are fresh and new, not GATA legacies.

Barker said the Flames responded well to the all-night festivities that ended at 7:30 a.m.

“Half of the girls expected Bid Night to be really hard, and the other half didn’t know what to expect, but they tired really quickly,” Barker said. “We are a very competitive club so we had a lot of running activities. We run around and scream and sing around the GATA fountain and hang out with the Frats. I think our Flames really enjoyed the evening.”

Bid Night also went smoothly for the 39 Galaxy pledges, called Novas.

Scott Brooks, Galaxy president and senior finance major from Coppell, said the Novas persevered throughout the night and gave everything they had while performing the activities.

Brooks said his favorite activity was watching the Nova’s reactions to the secrets of Galaxy as well as hanging out with the other club members.

“I love to see the reaction on the Nova’s faces when they are introduced to the club’s secrets,” Brooks said. “You can just see the excitement on their faces when they figure it out.”

All clubs participate in secret activities, which add to the allure of the evening, he said. Other activities Novas participated in included eating dinner with Ko Jo Kai pledges at Mr. Gatti’s pizza and skating with the Squigs: Sigma Theta Chi pledges.

He said the club didn’t change anything about its pledging activities this year, but members took more precaution to maximize safety, like having water and Gatorade available for pledges

Another club on campus that didn’t have to change activities for Bid Night was Tri Kappa Gamma.

This year TKG is down to three pledges, after 28 students re-chartered the club last spring.

Christy Gower, president of TKG and senior print journalism major from Allen, said the club didn’t change anything for this year’s pledging process because it had already reconsidered the process when the club re-chartered last spring.

She said the club took into account safety issues and extended the length of Bid Night.

This year the three pledges, who Gower described as sweethearts, ended the evening at 2:30 a.m. after finishing earlier than expected.

Gower said the members were able to hang out and that the evening was entertaining for both pledges and members.

She said members creatively came up with a different way to inform the Scrappie’s on what the club expected for each day by producing a fashion show from the spin-off of The Learning Channel’s, “What Not to Wear.”

GATA also focused on educating its pledges about the club’s heritage, which celebrates 86 years since it was chartered this year.

Barker said she wanted the Flames to know why they chose GATA.

“We are sisters in Christ, and we lead and serve in the community,” she said. “We want to be this for them and show them how much we stick together.”