Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403060029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN and KEN DAVIS STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Travis Ward, president of the group, says he hopes so.
"Yeah, I would love that. That is the ultimate goal," said Ward, who will graduate this spring.
But Ward admits the prospects are slim as long as fraternity members continue to get in trouble with city police and Radford University.
"I honestly can't see us being recognized by campus again," Ward said.
Ward was a relatively new member of the Sig Eps when the university withdrew the group's recognition. The fraternity lost its national charter more than two years ago because of a variety of charges including hazing and fighting.
Since then, the group has refused to acknowledge the loss of its national charter - still recruiting members and proudly displaying its Greek letters.
Ward said many of the fraternity's problems came from an ongoing rivalry with the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Six members now stand accused of breaking into houses to seek revenge against a TKE member who is accused of maliciously wounding a friend of the Sig Eps.
Ward's room at 1117 Fairfax St. - commonly known as the Sig Ep house - is decorated with a Sig Ep banner and several other items with the fraternity's Greek letter insignia.
"I'm technically a member of Sig Ep for life," Ward said.
While the national organization confiscated all ritual material when it revoked the Radford chapter's charter, Ward said the group still meets and recruits new members. The initiation is more a local thing now, he said, and doesn't follow the ritual procedures they had learned from their national representatives.
The group has 52 members now, about the same as when it was a national fraternity, Ward said.
"It's apparent we're going to be around. I just wish they'd work with us instead of against us," Ward said of the university and the national organization.
"If we had a charter, the school would have something to hold against us. And it would work, I guarantee you."
Ward said his phone calls to the national organization go unreturned.
"They don't have time for problems we give them and the risk that we are," Ward said.
"These guys have the potential to be a good fraternity," a member of the university's Interfraternity Council said.
"It really hurts our image as a whole."
The student is not alone in requesting anonymity. While most students are willing to discuss the stories surrounding Sigma Phi Epsilon, none want their names published for fear of retaliation by its members.
"I think people on this campus are definitely afraid of these guys, especially women," one student said. "They might not admit it, but they are."
Another student said the fraternity members seem to enjoy their bad reputation, and wear their Greek letters like a badge of machismo.
"You wouldn't think people with that kind of mentality would be at college," he said. "My main problem with them is that they're so proud of the way they are and so proud of their fraternity. It's ridiculous."
Ward said he's heard all the rumors - that fraternity members carry guns, that they recruit only the big and brawny, that there have been sexual assaults at the house.
The guys were even bigger back before the group lost its charter, he said, and he doesn't know a single member who owns a gun for anything other than hunting.
And if students are so afraid of the Sig Eps, Ward wonders why their parties are so well-attended.
by CNB