The Advocate-Baton Rouge, La.

Author: Carol Anne Blitzer

Date: Aug. 30, 1999

Start Page: 1. C

Section: People

The Dekes: Delta Kappa Epsilon has had a long and colorful history at LSU

Parties have been going on at the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity house since it was built on the LSU campus in 1930. The Dekes have always had a reputation as a party fraternity, yet among their members are many of the country's most outstanding business leaders, public officials and professionals.

"We've had some very successful people and we had fun," said Deke alum John Bateman. "The Dekes have always been very colorful.""We got our wild hairs out when we were on campus and then became governors and presidents," said Judge Frank Foil, a Deke alum and former president of the LSU student body. U.S. Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Gerald R. Ford and George Bush were all members of the national fraternity. Delta Kappa Epsilon was founded at Yale in 1844 by 15 men of the class of 1846. The founders considered their ideal member "he who combined in the most equal proportions the gentleman, scholar, and the jolly good fellow."LSU's Deke chapter, Zeta Zeta, was chartered Jan. 30, 1858, at old Centenary College, then located in Jackson. George William Buckner, Horace Westley Bullen, Louis Martin Pipkin, Henry Sheldon Rose, George Charles Crutcher, Adrian Charles Dumartrait, Franklin Garrett, John Calvin Goodman, William Champion McGimsey, William Elder Pickney, Thomas Wesley Scott, Joseph Ferdinand Sessions, James Thomas Stokes, Jesse Edwards White and Joseph Crawley Williams were initiated as charter members.

Deke alum Sam Thomson has collected memorabilia from the early years of the chapter and has written a short history of the LSU Dekes and the connection to the DKE chapter at Centenary. Thomson's records show that only 49 members were initiated at Centenary in the four classes that graduated before the outbreak of the Civil War. In the spring of 1861, the entire chapter joined the Confederate Army. Minutes for the chapter's last meeting indicate that the students planned to be back the following year to continue fraternity activities. When the faculty returned in the fall, there were no students, Thomson writes. Opposite the minutes for the final faculty meeting Oct. 7, 1861, the secretary wrote, "Students have all gone to war. College suspended, and God help the right!"Another chapter history tells of a letter informing the national fraternity of the situation at Centenary. "(N)o war of factions would 'break the bonds in DKE' and when the war was over, old ties would be reknit," the history quotes the letter as saying.

One fraternity member died before the war. "Of the remaining forty eight members, the majority served in various units of the Confederate Army with fifteen killed in combat or dying from wounds or illness while in service," Thomson writes. Thomson's records indicate that an effort was made to revive the chapter at Centenary at the end of the war, but the college had too few students. The charter was returned to the ruling executive body of the fraternity at Yale. During the winter of 1906, two students, Stanley P. Robinson and James R. Russell, decided to form a new organization on the LSU campus. They recruited fellow students R. Luther Stovall, Ralston F. Stovall, Marshall H. Gandy, L.J. Robertson, C.L. Garland, Paul D. Pavy, Luis H. Martin, Thomas B. Pugh and Walker J. Smith for the new group, The Friars.

From the beginning, the goal of The Friars was to petition a national fraternity for a charter. They selected Delta Kappa Epsilon, Thomson writes, because many of The Friars had friends in the Tulane DKE chapter. Friar Thomas B. Pugh's grandfather, Edward Pugh, had been a Deke at Princeton.

LSU's 1913 Gumbo yearbook quotes The Friars' constitution, which states that the group was also organized "(t)o conduct and maintain a secret order, with the idea of promoting high scholarship, strong friendship, good fellowship and moral integrity, to the end that the greatest possible benefit may be derived from college life. ..."In 1907 The Friars rented a house on Boyd Avenue (now Spanish Town Road) near the old campus. This was "the first student organization to maintain and live in a house of their own," the 1913 Gumbo states. In 1910, the club rented another home on Boyd Avenue, which it purchased some two and one-half years later. Members of The Friars enlisted local newspaper editor James E. Edmonds to help them get a charter from the national DKE fraternity. Edmonds, who had been a Deke at Ole Miss, was the son of a former Union Army officer who had moved to Mississippi after the Civil War and married a southerner. Members of Edmond's mother's family had fought in the Confederate Army, and two of his maternal uncles were members of the DKE chapter at Centenary. Edmonds became adviser to The Friars and sponsored the club in its effort to obtain a DKE charter. "The national Deke organization was not big on expansion," said Thomson. "They were also not keen on state universities." Year after year, The Friars petitioned the national fraternity for a charter. Twice a year the club prepared a bulletin for the national fraternity in which it listed the names of The Friars and the professions of their fathers. It updated the club's campus alumni activities and reported on the status of the chapter house.

"The loyal support and kind encouragement given us by our neighbors and friends of Delta Kappa Epsilon is warmly appreciated, and has inspired us with a firm determination to maintain ourselves as The Friars until such time as your honorable body shall see fit to grant us a charter," bulletins for 1914-15 and 1915-16 state.

Edmonds went to the national DKE convention and spoke on behalf of The Friars, Thomson said. "More than anyone, he was responsible for their succeeding."After 15 years of effort, the Zeta Zeta Chapter was finally re-established on the LSU campus April 7, 1923. Charter members of the revived chapter were John Hardie Barkley, Robert Babington Brock, Olivier Provosty Carriere, Lessley Davis Dale, Claiborne Joseph Dugas, Wilford Malvern Eberhart Jr., Henry Richmond Favrot, Edward Newell Fultz, Seid Waddell Hendrix, Robert Parker Lay, Robinson Mumford Leake, Charles Firmin Levert, Auguste du Montier Levert, Charles Austin O'Niell Jr., Clark Hammond Rice Jr., John David Sebastian, Holman Losey Smitha Jr., Arthur Leonard Swanson, Samuel Dalton Watson Jr. and James Ezekiel Edmonds Jr., only son of chapter adviser James E. Edmonds.

The Boyd Avenue home was sold in 1925. The chapter rented homes, including one at 338 North St., until its permanent home was completed on the new LSU campus in 1930. The State-Times for April 5, 1930, reported that construction on the new Deke house was underway and would be completed by the opening of school that year. Contractor on the $30,000 building was L.W. Eaton. Wogan and Bernard were the architects.

The home was built by the Zeta Zeta Alumni Association with the executive committee of John B. Smullin, A.B. Moore and L.A. Himes, all of Baton Rouge, and Walker Smith of Lake Charles.

The house contained three stories with the chapter lodge room at the top. The downstairs area of 1,500 square feet was designed for entertainment. The house could accommodate 30 men.

"The style of the house, which is being constructed of face brick and tile with a sand finish interior, will harmonize with the other buildings on the campus. The plans and specifications for the home have been approved by university authorities," the State-Times reported.

"The fraternity will have a house matron next year who will act as a chaperone at informal parties and help in the management of the commissary department," the paper said. "This plan is being used at many universities in the East, where it is found to be successful, but it is said to be new in the South."For eight years, the Deke house was the only house on Fraternity Row. It quickly became the center of social activities on the campus. Alum Bert Turner lived at his home in town during his first two years of college and then in the Stadium, where the ROTC members were housed. Turner, who held the prestigious position of colonel of the cadet corps, remembers the Deke house as "the focal point of all the activities."Pendery Gibbens was initiated by Murphy J. Foster, Louisiana's present governor. "When they showed me his picture when he was running for governor, I couldn't believe it was the same person," Gibbens said. "He had a shock of black hair then." For years Oliver "Buck" Griffin served as houseboy. He had been a member of the Buffalo Soldiers, Gen. John J. Pershing's all-black military unit that had chased Pancho Villa in northern Mexico.

"You could move in your room and he would unpack everything and put it away," said Rucker Leake, whose uncle Robinson Mumford Leake was in the chapter when it was granted the DKE charter. Another uncle, Feltus Leake, had been a Friar.

Every morning Griffin would wake up the boys in the house with the words, "Get out of bed and make those As." Rucker Leake recalls that members could bring dates for lunch on Wednesdays and Sundays. "We wore a coat and tie every Sunday, and we didn't sit down until the housemother was seated," he said. "Then we said grace."The same menus were served every week. Monday was meat loaf. "Every Sunday we had fried chicken and dressing," Gibbens said. "Members came from far and wide for that."The Dekes always excelled at intramural sports. "We were always in the finals with the Sigma Chis," Bateman said. "Gov. Mike Foster was one of the star touch-football players," Gibbens said, "he and Charlie Johnson and Malcolm McCall." All-American Bob Pettit and Ned Clark were stars on the varsity basketball team. Blackie Howell excelled as a boxer. "Boxing used to draw as many people as basketball," Gibbens said. Foil and Bateman recall a fire in the Deke house when about half of the second floor burned. "I lost everything in my room," Bateman said.

Dick Anderson, chief of Campus Police, was a Deke alum. He went to inspect the fire in his official capacity. "There was a newspaper story with a picture of Dick Anderson holding a bottle of whiskey. It was the only thing left," Foil said.

Huntington Odom had been president of the Deke chapter for five days when the fraternity got into trouble over its traditional boat party. The Dekes invited the whole campus to the party on the steamer Avalon, which held 1,200 people on three decks. "Miss Ione Burden represented the Dean of Women on the boat ride," Odom said.

"The KAs came on the boat with raincoats with bottles in their pockets," Odom said. They occupied the top deck. Sometime during the party, they started throwing their bottles into the water. "Miss Burden thought someone was jumping over the side," Odom said. "It was just the KAs' bottles, but we got put on probation," Odom said.

As notorious as was the Dekes' reputation for partying was their reputation for "creative" homecoming decorations. People came from all over the area to see what the chapter would come up with each year. "They got a little risque," Bateman said. "Then more risque. Then a little raunchy."Rucker Leake was stationed in Korea and was temporarily in Japan in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. "On the front page of the Stars and Stripes, I saw a picture of the LSU Deke house decorated for homecoming. The sign said 'To Hell with Decorations. We're Building a Bomb Shelter,' " he said.

During the crisis with Iran in 1979, the Dekes decorated their front yard with a sign that read, "We did it to Japan. We can do it to Iran." Pictures of the decorations were carried in newspapers all over the country. Over the years, 69 members of The Friars who had already graduated returned to be initiated into DKE. "Finally, the last of the old Friars to be initiated, John Robert Mays Jr., became a member of Zeta Zeta of DKE on October 5, 1969, just three days before his 74th birthday!" Thomson writes. Many of the chapter's traditions have been carried out for decades. The local chapter and the Tulane Dekes hold a spring picnic on a plantation in Covington. "We would charter a bus and have a big athletic competition," Leake said. "We've been doing that since Bert (Turner) was in school, and they're still doing it," Bateman said. "The trophy has been passed around from year to year." For years, alums have poured in from all over the state on football weekends. Whenever the alums get together, they always join arms to shoulders in a chain and march around the house singing the "Phi Marching Song." A brochure prepared by the chapter in the mid-1970s shows a photograph of Russell Long, one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate, marching around the fraternity house singing the "Phi Marching Song" with his Zeta Zeta brothers.

Members of all Deke chapters often gather at the Yale Club across from Grand Central Station in New York. "When the club got in financial trouble during the Depression, a Deke bailed them out," Bateman said. One condition was that all Dekes have privileges of membership. "Any Deke from any chapter can stay there," said Beau Box. "It's the cheapest room in Manhattan."Former members of the chapter have remained active alumni over the years. "When I was in the chapter, I used to go to Bert's house," Bateman said. "He was a faithful alum. He'd keep us out of trouble.""That was a full-time job," Turner said. In 1960, Deke alumni Todd Garland, A.W. Noland and Mumford Leake headed a fund drive for an addition and a major renovation of the house. In 1976, architect Bill Hughes and interior designer Dixon Smith did another major renovation. "We had Oriental rugs and velvet drapes. We brought back the natural woodwork. It was gorgeous," Bateman said. At present, Turner, Pettit, Box and Frank Purvis are co-chairing a campaign to raise about $900,000 for another major restoration of the building. In the nearly 70 years since the DKE house was dedicated on the campus, the Dekes have been in and out of trouble with LSU's administration. Alumni still love to return to the old house with the red tile roof and the solid exterior masonry walls, but it's the friendships, they say, that are most important. "The lifelong friends - that's the beauty of a fraternity," Bateman said. "When we get together, it's a real bond," Rucker Leake added.