From fast-paced competitions to a musical performance, Keene State College Greek life threw a big bash during this year’s Greek Week.
For the third straight year in a row, Alpha Sigma Phi (Alpha Sig) and Delta Phi Epsilon (DPhiE) took home the victories after all the points were tallied from the week’s jam-packed events.
The annual week offers the fraternities and sororities on campus to come together to engage in friendly competition, with each day bringing a different event that each organization has a chance to gain points in, ultimately being added up to determine Greek Week’s winners.
The participating organizations kicked off the week at Joyce Field for some field games such as volleyball, cornhole and tug-of-war, among others.
The second day of the week brought “Minute To Win It,” in the Mabel Brown Room. The competition was a series of short games that different teams played in.
The games included stacking cups with oven mitts on, moving M&M’s with a drinking straw and putting together a small puzzle. Several tables were set up with the materials needed for each game.
“We have nine events, each of them are going to be run twice for the fraternities and then the sororities,” said Connor Lawrence, Greek Week organizer and Sigma Pi president, referring to “Minute to Win It,” games.
First-year Mia Perfetto, a Phi Sigma Sigma (Phi Sig) member, said she was happy to participate in her first Greek Week at Keene State.
“This is my first [Greek Week], it’s been so cool,” Perfetto said. “Seeing all the Greek organizations getting together and rooting for each other but also playing against each other, it was just a blast.”
Wednesday’s event, a Day of Service, took on a different tone, allowing organizations to write letters to their respective foundations and organizations that they support as their philanthropies.
“That same day later on we had Air Band dress rehearsals for those who were participating,” DPhiE President and junior Lauren Lindberg said.
“Dashing through the decades,” was this year’s Air Band theme, requiring participants to use at least four decades worth of represented music in their performances.
DPhiE took home the victory on the sorority side, while Alpha Sig prevailed for the fraternities.
“It was more of a 2000s vibe which was really awesome because I feel like reminiscing on childhood songs that we all grew up listening to was awesome,” Lindberg said.
Lindberg said the group’s costumes were stylized with poofy hair, ties and generally an early-2000s style to match the music.
“We did a lot of gestures that were presented in the songs, so if [the song] was talking about people we would point to the crowd, so it was all gesture-based dance moves,” Lindberg said.
She added a number of members being on the cheer team aided the group’s performance.
“They do it on the regular so that was a really fun aspect that we came across and we were like ‘Oh, let’s do something weird and crazy,’ and they were like ‘Well, I can do this,’ “ Lindberg explained.
DPhiE member and junior Caesar Barboa described the group’s nine-minute-long performance.
“The way that I’ve been describing it to everyone is … A lip sync performance,” Barboa said. “Basically, we just do group dance to … a medley of songs based around [the] theme,” she added.
Not only current students attended the performances though, as some Greek alumni came out to show their support for their organization.
“I definitely want to be an active alumni with Air Band, because I participated in Air Band when I was a student here,” said former Phi Sig member Cody Hyldburg ‘23. “I know it’s much more fun when there’s people in the crowd supporting you. Especially because I know how much hard work goes into these performances and having that fanbase definitely makes it all worth it.”
Olivia Ploof, another 2023 alum and former Phi Sig member highlighted the impact Greek Week brings to organizations.
“This is a huge part of Greek life. Greek Week in general is an amazing time for community-building and alum just add to that community,” Ploof said. “We want to be here to support our friends.”
DPhiE member and senior Vanessa LeSage also spoke about the importance of Greek Week as a whole.
“It’s like the best part of the year for all of Greek life,” LeSage said. “Greek Week is always something memorable for ourselves because we get to come together and celebrate. And then Air Band is just so much fun because we get to do a little performance for each other. It’s just something so special,” she added.
Orion Corbin can be contacted at
ocorbin@kscequinox.com
