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The Greeks are coming!

Published: Thursday, March 4, 2010

Updated: Sunday, March 7, 2010

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JOANNE ALLAGOMES

Keogmania took place at the KEΘ house on Metcalf Street.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JOANNE ALLAGOMES

Students race to pour another beer to empty the keg.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JOANNE ALLAGOMES

A beer drinking contest pitted three teams of 15 people against each other to see which team could drain an entire keg fi rst.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JOANNE ALLAGOMES

Students enjoy cups of beer at Kegomania, which was sponsored by the Kappa Epsilon Theta fraternity.

 There’s been a small revival of Greek life on the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa campus in the past few years, as fraternities like Kappa Epsilon Theta (KEΘ) are trying to get into the public eye once more.

A few weeks ago, KEΘ held an event called Kegomania. It was a beer drinker’s paradise.

The event consisted of three teams with 15 people to each team. The first group to finish a keg without puking won the event.

KEΘ won in 73 minutes.

“I was fairly drunk,” said club president Bryan Hinkle.

Was it safe?

“Unless you’re a 40-pound person ... you’ll be fine,” Hinkle said.

The last keg was finished about three and a half hours into the event. Everyone who participated needed to have had a designated driver or stay over at the fraternity’s house on Metcalf Street.

The dynamic of a bunch of guys – some of them boisterous, some of them quiet drunks, some looking for companionship, some looking for the bathroom – helped set the atmosphere for a commingling of Greeks.

“Everyone had a lot of fun,” Hinkle said. “There was a lot of interaction between the different organizations.”

KEΘ, which has been around since 1937, set up the time, location, people, and beer for Kegomania, because alcohol-related events are not supported by the campus. However, the school does allow the use of facilities if approved by authorities.

The club had called together members of Mānoa’s Intergreek Council, a group representing the three fraternities and two sororities that exist on campus. The subgoverning body is a means for all the social Greek bodies on campus to meet and plan events.

These events aren’t only alcohol-related.

“Every semester we do a Greek Week. (We hold) a fundraiser for a charity in the courtyard, we do a song fest, and other various events,” Hinkle said, adding that Kegomania will happen every semester.

Although students are always encouraged to join, Greek life isn’t for everyone.

Kappa Epsilon Theta, and the Greek system as a whole, “advocate social growth and creating connections to school. ... It’s not just about coming to school, going to class, and going home,” Hinkle said, though some would disagree.

In fact, as seen by the ratio of students who attend campus-sponsored fairs and activities to the student body population, many UH students are content with socializing on their own time.

If there was more publicity for Greeks on campus, that ratio wouldn’t be as steep.

When asked why Greek life wasn’t that popular at Mānoa, Hinkle said that after a “crackdown” a couple years ago, “a lot of Greek systems were shut down; a lot of the national organizations left campus.”

Those that remained now constitute the three fraternities and two sororities here. There are other business fraternities, but they don’t function as social groups.

The premed student initially joined the brotherhood after his first deployment to Iraq, where, acting as a combat medic, he met another guy in his profession who happened to be a KEΘ brother.

He was invited to pledge after going to one of their parties.

 

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