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Beta Finishes the Year in High Fashion
CALENDAR: Monday May 4th: Beginning of Finals Week at UMaine Saturday May 9th: Graduation at UMaine NEWS: April: The brothers of Beta volunteered at their 9th straight Eddington Elementary School Fair on April 10th. Brothers ran the fair's events, helping out to put on the games for kids, selling raffle tickets and cleaning up afterwards. Several Beta brothers participated in the UMaine Relay for Life on April 17 and 18th. Brother Michael Lemont was one of the top five fundraisers for the event out of about 1,000 individual participants. Pictures to come soon! On Friday April 24 we held our end of the year banquet at the Penobscot Valley Country Club. The night began when Brother Chris Ludden pinned his girlfriend Rachel Clukey of Alpha Phi in front of the house prior to leaving for the country club. The night celebrated the past year's accomplishments. Dean of Students, Dr. Robert Dana, was on hand to given the welcoming address. Awards were presented for Highest GPA (Alex Heathco), Most Improved GPA (Matt Thornton), Leader of the Year (Jameson Hardy), Gentleman of the Year (Stephen Smith), Athlete of the Year (TJ Vanidestine), and Selfless Brother of the Year (Jonathan Wilcox). The night was also one of the final farewells for the seniors prior to graduation. Each was given their senior plaques and a slideshow was presented in their honor to remember their years with Beta. The festivities of the evening concluded with another Brother pinning his girlfriend as Jameson Hardy pinned his girlfriend Celeste Clark of Chi Omega. Brothers of Beta untied to participate in the Alpha Phi Move Your Phi't philanthropy event on Sunday April 26th. The brothers all walked the 5K event around the UMaine Campus and local Orono area. The annual UMaine tradition, Maine Day, was held on Wednesday April 29th. Brothers spent the day cleaning up the house inside and out and celebrated in the afternoon with some performances of bands brothers are memebers of and some volleyball games and cookouts. March: While the first two weeks of March are Spring Break at the University of Maine and many of the brothers have headed south for an escape from the Maine winter that never seems to end, the Executive Board will be holding a mid-semester retreat at Brother McKinnon's camp to evaluate the status of the chapter and continue steering and leading the brotherhood towards success throughout the second half of the Spring 2009 semester. Beta entertained the women of Alpha Phi on Saturday, March 21st for an Asian cuisine dinner. The brothers concluded the evening with a serenade of songs to the sorority women. February: The beginning of February saw Beta send almost all of Executive Board to Valley Forge, PA to attend the Keystone Leadership Conference. All came back with new ideas from Beta chapters all across the Northeast. After dominating Greek Week in the Fall, we won first place overall in the 2009 Winter Carnival, placing second in the talent show and having highest number of participants in the polar dip on the mall, along with a large donation to the Boys & Girls Club. Our annual Beta Sleep-Out was held on Friday the 13th on a cold windy evening. We had almost all of the other Sororities and Fraternities show up to support us along with Dean Dana and representatives of Rape Response Services of Bangor. This year we raised over $5,000 again for Rape Response Services of Bangor! See our Philanthropy page for more photos and information from the event. Thanks again to all who supported and sponsored our Sleep-Out this year! January: The New Year Brings an exciting start to the year for Beta. With a new executive board, new blood is pushing forward the traditions we hold so dear with the visions of new ideas and motivation. We are all very excited to begin a new semester and continue being great men of principle. The Beta Executive Board held their semi-annual retreat at Brother Oakes' family lodge at Sugarloaf in Carrabassett Valley, ME. Many hours of work were put towards establishing the direction and plans for the fraternity over the upcoming semester. December: The house is decorated for Christmas as the holiday season has quickly come upon us. The Beta Fall Formal was held on Dec. 5th at the Sports Cafe in Orono. A fun time was had by the brothers and their dates. Below is the chain of littles; Brothers Dietz, Hostetter & Lemont The brotherhood welcomed eight new members into the Beta Eta Chapter on December 12th; Joel-Michael Martin, Christian Dionne, Daniel Fraser, Tyler Harvey, Taylor Lapierre, James McGonagle, Mark Sirois, & Aaron Healey. Congratulations! November: Beta had a very high turnout at the IFC Greek Food Drive at Shaws on Hogan Rd. in Bangor on 11/15. Many brothers were seen shopping and donating food to the cause as well. All food donated and collected was given by IFC to the Manna Ministries of Bangor who will provide the food to those who need it this holiday season. A new executive board was elected for the 2009 calendar year. They are as follows: Ian McKinnon (President), Billy Roy (Vice President), Jonathan Wilcox (Risk Manager), Jak Keenan (Secretary), Kevin Daigle (Treasurer), Michael Lemont (Scholarship), Nicholas Dehaas (Public Relations), Michael Pepin (House Manager), Jameson Hardy (Pledge Educator), & Adam Littlefield (Recruitment). Congratulations! October: The house was given some more facelifts after the bathroom was completed, most notably including the painting of the upstairs hallway. Homecoming this year was a great success with many alumni returning for a fun time. Presented at this year's homecoming were the awards for Alumni of the Year and Active Brother of the Year for 2007 and 2008. Brother Ed Stevens won Alumni of the Year for '07 and Brother Jim Purvis won Alumni of the Year for '08. Brother Josh Lagasse won Active of the Year for '07 and Brother Jameson Hardy won Active of the Year for '08. Also, Brother Anthony Crosby pinned his girlfriend Hadley Nobles. The Beta Eta Chapter would like to thank all of the alumni who came up on the 24th and 25th to celebrate another year of life-long fraternal brotherhood. September: We hit the year of strong, having the highest attendence out of any Greek organization and the only fraternity at the Komen 5K Race for the Cure in Bangor. We also brought honor and pride back to Beta, not only winning Greek week, but dominating it but winning all but one event (which was a close second) and winning in points by nearly 500 points overall! Below is a video of our performace at the Greek Talent Show, performing the Miley Cyrus song "See You Again". We also had a very strong and successful rush this fall and now have 8 pledges. Pictured below is the Beta table at the 2008 Greek Jam in the Freshman quad, one of the UMaine recruitment events. Pledge educator, Ryan Dietz, is seen here in the red shirt. Summer: Our bathroom was renovated thanks to the generosity, dedication, and efforts of our alumni. A special thanks goes out to Brother Purvis for his major contributions, time, and efforts into making this bathroom possible. Also, this past year we won several awards for our annual Beta Sleepout. Two awards from the University of Maine were presented to us on April 29th, the Russell Crouse Award and the Ryan Quinn Award. Rape Response Services of Bangor also presented us with their Teal Ribbon Award, reserved for the greatest contributing person or group to their efforts. The greatest award of all was presented to President Jamie Hardy at this summer's National Convention in Dallas; the John Holt Duncan Award, given to the chapter with the most impressive philanthropic efforts of the past year. We sent several Beta Etas to national Beta Theta Pi events this summer. Above is Brother McKinnon and Brother Lemont at the Administrative Offices at Miami University in Oxford, OH during the first session of the Wooden Institute for Men of Principle in June. Along with those two, Brothers Dehaan, Satalich, and Keenan also attended one of the Wooden Institute sessions later in the summer. Brothers Hardy, Baldacci, and Oakes all travelled to Dallas, TX for the 169th National Convention in August. |
