Keene State College’s Greek Life organizations engaged in a week of competitive games, community service and dance performances during the annual return of Greek Week.
Throughout the week of April 15-18, each of KSC’s sororities and fraternities competed against each other in various activities, looking to earn points for their individual organizations. At the end of the week, points from each event were tallied up, with one sorority and one fraternity each taking home the win. For the fourth consecutive year, Alpha Sigma Phi (Alpha Sig) and Delta Phi Epsilon (DPhiE) were crowned the Greek Week champions.
Vice President of Programming for Panhellenic Council and senior Ashley Ferragamo, discussed the process of organizing such a big event.
“My counterpart and I have been working really closely with each other and over the summer we planned out the entire week,” said Ferragamo. “It took a lot of planning … just to have a fun week and really build a community closer with each other.”
The week kicked off with opening day on Tuesday, April 15, which started with a parade down Appian Way. Despite a day of bad weather, members of every Greek organization gathered at the archway in their Greek Week shirts. They held flags and banners promoting Greek Life as they paraded down Appian Way through the rainfall.
At the parade’s conclusion, the group split up into individual organizations in anticipation for the second event of the day, which was field games. This event saw each sorority and fraternity compete against each other in various games at Joyce Field, all in pursuit of points for their organization. The games that Greek life members competed in included kickball, tug-of-war, volleyball, cornhole and basketball.
The second day of Greek Week, Wednesday, April 16, was designated as the Day of Service. That night, Greek life members went to the Night Owl Café to put together gift baskets containing items like books and toys for the children at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene.
President of the Interfraternity Council, member of Alpha Sigma Phi and junior Jason Mowbray talked about the purpose and importance of the Day of Service that is a part of Greek Week each year.
“It’s a good way to give back to the community. Our main goal is just to create a positive outlook on Greek Life, especially here at Keene State, so we figure in small ways like this, giving back to the community as a greater Greek scale is a good way to do it,” Mowbray said. “Each chapter does their own philanthropy and service things, this is a way for us to do it as an entirety.”
President of the Panhellenic Council, member of DPhiE and senior Mykenzie Rives added that the Day of Service event is a favorite among the members of Greek Life.
“Everyone always is excited for this one because it’s our service-based [event]. It always makes people feel happy,” Rives said. “We’re also making little cards to send in the little gift bags, like words of encouragement and love for the people who will be getting those bags.”
The third event of the week was “Minute to Win It” in the Mabel Brown Room on Thursday, April 17 from 6 to 8 p.m. Fraternities and sororities competed against each other in different challenges, each round lasting only one minute. Each Greek organization had the chance to participate and potentially earn points. The challenges included things like ring toss, bouncing a pencil into a cup and plastic Easter egg pong.
This year, instead of the challenges being played throughout the room, they were set up on the stage with audience seating.
“We purposely did that because I know last year was a lot of people standing up and you [couldn’t] really see everything that’s happening,” said Ferragamo. “For more people to see what’s going on, we figured it would be better to have one organization at a time and have it onstage.”
The final event of Greek Week was AirBand, a dance competition where each participating organization choreographs a dance number and puts together a music mash-up. This year’s AirBand theme was Vegas and each organization interpreted it in a different way, from dancing to Vegas-themed songs, dressing up as senior citizens or performing a wild night out.
“[AirBand] is really fun because we all get to create it ourselves,” said senior Sarah Grindrod, president of Kappa Beta Gamma. “It is scored … but we just enjoy doing it for fun, that’s what we care about more. And it’s really fun to see the other orgs, what they do as well.”
“I think it was legendary,” said senior Jake Scarelli, a member of Alpha Sig, about his fraternity’s performance. “It was very cinematic. It was like a movie, it was beautiful.”
At the end of AirBand, superlatives were given out to members of Greek Life, including “Best smile,” “Cutest Greek couple” and “Most likely to win a Nobel Prize.” Afterwards, the Greek Week winners were announced. Alpha Sig and DPhiE won for the fourth year in a row.
Rives described the importance of Greek Week as a whole, saying it is a chance
to build unity among the Greek Life community.
“If you think about it in a high school standpoint, it’s kind of like high school spirit week,” said Rives. “This is just a time for us to all get together, have fun, be competitive but be supportive of each other, and then also do things for the community around us that make us happy and make our surrounding community happy.”
“This entire week is just a way to get together, celebrate who we are and come together as one whole group,” Mowbray added. “We’re a smaller percentage of campus, but we like to say we’re small but mighty. We all like to stick together and do our own thing.”
To many involved in Greek Life, Greek Week is an important time for their community.
“[Greek Week] means that I can be connected with the whole community,” said Ferragamo. “Just … seeing everyone be excited has been a very good, positive thing for myself.”
“It’s really nice to have something that’s all of the orgs together,” said Grindrod. “It is a competition, there is a winner at the end of it, but it’s fun to just be with each other and have fun with each other.”
Orion Corbin can be contacted at
Justin Dearborn can be contacted at
jdearborn@kscequinox.com
