On Tuesday December 1st, 2009, Fraters Bill Baber, Tony Cossette, Tom Stoecker, Marcus Randall, and Grant Gale took first place in a campus wide bowling tournament sponsored by the Interfraternity Council to raise money for the American Heart Association. The tournament consisted of five member teams and allowed each bowler to bowl three games. The results were determined by totaling all the scores of each team member. TKE won first place by more than 800 pins. TKE also recorded five of the six highest scores of the day. Frater Baber led the way with scores of 196, 188 and 167, Frater Gale bowled a 189, and Frater Stoecker bowled a 160. Grand Prize included free ad space on one of the bowling pin rakes in the Student Center Bowling alley for 6 months. Our ad is shown above.

On Saturday October 17th, the Beta Chi Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon hosted the first “Auto’s 4 Alzheimer’s!” philanthropy Car Show at Southern Illinois University. Despite bad weather the chapter was able to raise a significant amount of money with the help of local sponsorships. The event is the culmination of two years worth of planning of Gavin Gottfried. “After a great turnout and many donations we look forward to hosting the show with twice as many people come April 2010,” said Frater Gottfried. All money raised will be donated to the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Alzheimer’s Foundation. T-shirts can be purchased for $15 plus shipping by emailing Gavin Gottfried at ggavin@siu.edu.

On October 10, 2009, Frater Tony Cossette was elected SIUC Homecoming King. The Beta Chi chapter has had representation on every Homecoming Court since our refounding, with Frater Cossette being the first to be elected King. Amanda Weaver from Sigma Kappa was elected Homecoming Queen. Previous Homecoming King nominees have been Zach Englum (2006), Alex Stojcevski (2007) and Kevin Alves (2008).

The Child Development Lab (CDL) is an early childhood education daycare/preschool where children from 6 weeks to 6 years of age attend. After the inland hurricane hit Carbondale, the CDL playground lost trees and some of their playground equipment was lost or damaged. The Beta Chi Chapter volunteered the first Saturday before the CDL Fall school year started to help build a new walking path to the playground, helped put new equipment together, and cleaned up the playground. Pictured in this photo are Joe Harkin, Brandon Klekamp, Eric Sorgatz, Carl Miller and Andre Vieyra.

Recently, Frater Louis Kotvis (BX 1061) was named to the collegiate advisor committee for the Fraternity. Frater Kotvis has shown great character and leadership in his three semesters as a frater, which was a reason for his selection. Frater Kotvis also attended the TKE Leadership Academy during this past summer, which helped him get a feel for what TKE Nation is about as a whole.

The reason this position is so prestigious is because Frater Kotvis was chosen to be one of only eight undergraduate collegiate advisors. Their job entails being the voice and represenatives of the undergraduate members of TKE. They are also advisors to Grand Council members and leaders at the TKE headquarters in Indianapolis. Recently Frater Kotvis made his first trip to meet with his committee, in Memphis, and share his opinions and ideas with the TKE CEO, Grand Epiprytanis, and the Director of Communications.

Louis Kotvis’ recent achievements have made BX proud, and continue to make our Southern Illinois chapter known by the entire TKE nation. BX will continue to excel on and off campus with the leadership and commitment shown by every Frater of BX.