40 Fun Facts About Kappa Sigma

Which Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star joined Kappa Sigma as a University of Colorado student?

Robert Redford belonged to the Gamma-Tau chapter at Boulder. He later won the Best Director Oscar for his first film behind the camera, Ordinary People.

Which singer joined Kappa Sigma at Southern Mississippi, then built a beach-themed empire of restaurants and resorts?

Jimmy Buffett was an Epsilon-Nu chapter initiate who earned a history degree in Hattiesburg. His Margaritaville brand grew from one 1977 song into restaurants, hotels and casinos.

Which astronomer, a Kappa Sigma at the University of Chicago, proved that galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way?

Edwin Hubble joined the Gamma-Beta chapter as an undergraduate and was named the fraternity's Man of the Year in 1948. NASA's best-known space telescope carries his name.

Jerry Jones, a Kappa Sigma from the University of Arkansas, bought which NFL team in 1989?

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was initiated into the Xi chapter in Fayetteville. The fraternity named him its Man of the Year in 1993, the season of his second Super Bowl win.

Ted Turner, a Kappa Sigma initiated at Brown University, founded which first 24-hour cable news channel?

CNN went on air in 1980 under Ted Turner, a Beta-Alpha chapter initiate who also owned baseball's Atlanta Braves and launched the TBS superstation.

Stanford Kappa Sigma brothers Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy co-founded which app built around disappearing photos?

Snapchat began in 2011 as a prototype called Picaboo. Both founders belonged to the same campus chapter, and Spiegel became the company's chief executive.

Which Olympic runner and World War II prisoner of war, the subject of Unbroken, was a Kappa Sigma at USC?

Louis Zamperini, who ran at the 1936 Berlin Games, belonged to the Delta-Eta chapter. The fraternity gave him its Golden Heart Award at a Las Vegas conclave in 2011.

Kappa Sigma's Four Pillars are Leadership, Scholarship, Service and which value, the one listed ahead of the others?

Fellowship leads the Four Pillars in the fraternity's own listing. Kappa Sigma calls itself values-based and strictly forbids hazing.

Mort Walker, once Kappa Sigma chapter president at Missouri, created which comic strip about a lazy Army private?

Beetle Bailey first ran in 1950. The fraternity named its creator, a Beta-Gamma chapter initiate, Man of the Year in 1988.

Kappa Sigma founder William Grigsby McCormick was a nephew of Cyrus McCormick, famed for inventing which farm machine?

The mechanical reaper built the family fortune, and another uncle, Leander, gave the University of Virginia its McCormick Observatory.

Which Indiana University Kappa Sigma composed the standards Stardust and Georgia on My Mind?

Hoagy Carmichael joined the Beta-Theta chapter in Bloomington and played piano around Indiana and Ohio with his college band. The fraternity named him Man of the Year in 1953.

Which Latin motto of Kappa Sigma, a salute to a medieval Italian university, also titles the fraternity's pledge manual?

Bononia Docet means "Bologna teaches" and honours the university where tradition places the order's birth. The pledge book has carried the title since 1963.

A plaque at the University of Virginia marks which student room where Kappa Sigma was founded in December 1869?

46 East Lawn was the room of William Grigsby McCormick, where he and four fellow students met on December 10 to ratify a constitution and bind themselves by an oath.

What collective name does Kappa Sigma give its founders, the students who met at the University of Virginia in 1869?

Five Friends and Brothers is the fraternity's own term for its founders. None was older than nineteen in 1869, and the youngest was not yet seventeen.

Which fragrant spring flower is the official flower of Kappa Sigma?

Lily of the valley is the fraternity's flower in the pledge manual, which notes that it grows wild in parts of the United States and Europe.

Which three colors has Kappa Sigma used since a final change in 1902?

Scarlet, white and emerald green replaced old gold, maroon and peacock blue. The fraternity's original set was white, green and purple.

Kappa Sigma's magazine, launched in 1885 as the Quarterly, has carried which name since 1891?

The Caduceus, named for the winged staff of Mercury, has been published continuously since. The same staff appears on the pin worn by the fraternity's pledges.

Kappa Sigma's international headquarters, dedicated in 2007 on Scottsville Road, stands in which Virginia college town?

Charlottesville has housed a permanent headquarters since 1965, close to the order's American birthplace. The 150th anniversary conclave met there in 2019.

Kappa Sigma's founding chapter at the University of Virginia is known by which Greek letter instead of Alpha?

Zeta is the mother chapter's designation. The Alpha name went instead to a chapter chartered at Emory University in 1887.

Which Kappa Sigma founder, an architecture student turned professional stage actor, designed the fraternity's badge?

Edmund Law Rogers drew the badge in 1869, and the first order went to a Baltimore jeweller over the Christmas holidays. He later acted under the stage name Leslie Edmunds.

Which 1872 initiate, the Golden Hearted Virginian, wrote Kappa Sigma's ritual and became its first Worthy Grand Master?

Stephen Alonzo Jackson was nearly turned down for membership, then spent twenty years turning a struggling local society into a national order. His statue stands at headquarters.

Kappa Sigma tradition says which Greek scholar at Bologna united his disciples around 1400 for mutual protection?

Manuel Chrysoloras came to Italy as an envoy of the Byzantine emperor and stayed to teach Greek. His pupils became some of the first Renaissance humanists.

In Kappa Sigma lore, students at Bologna banded together against which city governor, later the antipope John XXIII?

Baldassare Cossa is said to have extorted and robbed foreign students through his agents. A church council deposed him as antipope in 1415, and a modern pope later took the same name.

On the Kappa Sigma badge, which emblem sits at the center of the crescent, between crossed keys and crossed swords?

Skull and crossbones, keys and swords are all enameled in black on the crescent, while the letters KS sit at the center of the star.

What shape is the Kappa Sigma pledge pin, a field of black enamel with a narrow border of gold?

An inverted triangle of black enamel forms the pin, designed by Herbert Milton Martin of the Randolph-Macon chapter and lettered with the fraternity's Greek initials.

In a Kappa Sigma chapter's Executive Committee, which officer ranks second, serving as first vice president?

Grand Procurator sits between the Grand Master and the Grand Master of Ceremonies. The same five titles, each prefixed Worthy, make up the international governing board.

Kappa Sigma once revoked a chapter's charter for dropping which membership requirement from its initiation?

Belief in God is required of every member, though no specific religion is. The New York Times reported in 1982 on the chapter expelled for cutting the religious language.

Kappa Sigma first expanded in 1873 to Trinity College, known today as which North Carolina university?

Duke grew out of Trinity College, where James Durham was authorised to start the Eta chapter in February 1873. Three more chapters followed that school year.

Theodore Roosevelt picked Kappa Sigma founder John Covert Boyd, a Navy surgeon, to help incorporate which organization?

American Red Cross duties came in 1905, three decades into Boyd's naval medical career. He died in London in 1927 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

In Kappa Sigma, Star and Crescent can mean the badge, the official record of fraternity business, or which 1963 text?

The credo was written by E. Bradford Holbrook Jr. of the Tulane chapter. It sets out the qualities that make a man worthy to wear the badge.

Which Kappa Sigma program, launched at the 2003 Grand Conclave in Tampa, trains chapters in year-round recruitment?

Champion Quest asks each chapter to run at least three pledge and initiation cycles every academic year, with alumni and undergraduates recruiting together.

Which Kappa Sigma philanthropy, created in 2007, funds groups that aid combat-wounded veterans and their families?

Military Heroes Campaign money is raised mostly by undergraduate chapters and passed to veteran-focused charities such as Homes For Our Troops and the SEAL Legacy Foundation.

Kappa Sigma's distinguished alumni award honors which Texas senator, its Worthy Grand Master from 1971 to 1973?

John G. Tower joined the Iota chapter at Southwestern University and sat on the fraternity's governing committee for six years. The award in his name dates from 1995.

Which Kappa Sigma from Kansas became Senate Majority Leader and the 1996 Republican presidential nominee?

Bob Dole was named the fraternity's Man of the Year in 1970 and again in 2020, half a century apart.

Which Kappa Sigma from SMU founded the American Football League and owned the Kansas City Chiefs?

Lamar Hunt joined the Delta-Pi chapter in 1952 and was the fraternity's Man of the Year twenty years later. He is also credited with coining the name Super Bowl.

Which Apollo 14 astronaut, a Kappa Sigma from Carnegie Tech, became the sixth person to walk on the Moon?

Edgar Mitchell spent nine hours working on the lunar surface in 1971 as the mission's lunar module pilot, stepping out after commander Alan Shepard.

Which broadcaster, a Kappa Sigma at Washington State, became famous for radio reports from London during World War II?

Edward R. Murrow was the fraternity's Man of the Year in 1941. His later television reports helped bring about the Senate's censure of Joseph McCarthy.

Which Kappa Sigma from the University of Kansas steered Ford through the 2008 crisis without a federal bailout?

Alan Mulally left Boeing to become the carmaker's chief executive in 2006. Two fellow members, Jack Smith and Robert Eaton, had earlier led General Motors and Chrysler.

Kappa Sigma Dike Beede, the longtime Youngstown football coach, introduced which piece of officiating equipment in 1941?

The penalty flag replaced horns and whistles that could stop the wrong team mid-play. Beede's wife Irma sewed the first one, reportedly from a Halloween costume and an old bed sheet.

Kappa Sigma chartered its first Canadian chapter, Delta-Epsilon, in 1924 at which university?

Toronto brothers made the fraternity international, and chapters at Alberta and British Columbia followed by 1941. A 1931 conclave even met in Ontario.