40 Fun Facts About Pi Kappa Alpha

Which Pi Kappa Alpha member first served his chicken dishes to travelers at a Kentucky service station?

Harland Sanders, the white-suited Colonel of Kentucky Fried Chicken, is listed with the fraternity's University of Florida chapter. He took over the Shell station in Corbin in 1930.

Pi Kappa Alpha's preamble opens by seeking to establish what "on a firmer and more lasting basis"?

Friendship comes first in the preamble, ahead of brotherly love and mutual benefit. Two of the founders drafted the single sentence as a statement of how the fraternity began.

Pi Kappa Alpha's 1988 Memorial Headquarters was inspired by which US president's Virginia home?

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's hilltop house, was the model for the building. Jefferson also designed the University of Virginia rooms where the fraternity was founded.

Which writer roomed in 1826 on the University of Virginia row where Pi Kappa Alpha was later founded?

Edgar Allan Poe lived at No. 13 on the row and left after a year for lack of money. Pi Kappa Alpha keeps No. 47, its birthplace, and Woodrow Wilson later lived at No. 31.

Pi Kappa Alpha member Bob Bowman, a Florida State graduate, coached which swimmer to 23 Olympic titles?

Michael Phelps is the swimmer Bowman is best known for coaching. Bowman has also guided the champions Léon Marchand and Summer McIntosh.

Pi Kappa Alpha member Will Shortz, an Indiana graduate, is famous for editing which New York Times feature?

The crossword became his to edit in 1993. Shortz designed his own Indiana major and holds the only known college degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles.

Pi Kappa Alpha shares which pair of official colors with the Florida State Seminoles?

Garnet and gold have a mixed pedigree at Florida State, where garnet came from blending crimson with the purple of its early football teams.

Pi Kappa Alpha first left the United States in 1970 for the University of Windsor, in which country?

Canada's University of Windsor, in Ontario, hosted the Eta Gamma chapter, which lasted only until 1972. Later chapters followed elsewhere in Ontario and in Alberta.

Which country star, who married Faith Hill in 1996, pledged Pi Kappa Alpha at Northeast Louisiana University?

Tim McGraw went to the Monroe campus on a baseball scholarship, and a knee injury there ended his hopes of a sports career. His father was major league pitcher Tug McGraw.

Pi Kappa Alpha member Nolan Bushnell founded Chuck E. Cheese and which video game company behind Pong?

Atari was later sold to Warner Communications, and Bushnell went on to start more than 20 companies. Newsweek named him one of its 50 Men Who Changed America.

Pi Kappa Alpha member S. Truett Cathy founded which chicken sandwich chain that closes every Sunday?

Chick-fil-A grew out of the Dwarf Grill, a tiny diner Cathy opened near Atlanta in 1946. He is listed with the fraternity's Georgia Southern chapter.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha member from the University of Houston won four Emmys playing Sheldon Cooper?

Jim Parsons appeared in 17 plays in three years as a Houston theater student. He played Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory from 2007 to 2019.

Pi Kappa Alpha member Eric Stonestreet won two Emmys as Cameron Tucker on which sitcom?

Modern Family ran from 2009 to 2020. Stonestreet first went on stage at Kansas State after auditioning on a dare, and won the smallest role in the play.

Pi Kappa Alpha's 1946 Victory Convention chose which Tennessee city for a war memorial headquarters?

Memphis got the first Memorial Headquarters in 1954, built to honor brothers killed in military service. The convention that picked the city met on Mackinac Island, Michigan.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha member from Syracuse anchored ABC's late-night news program Nightline for 25 years?

Ted Koppel graduated from Syracuse at 20 and soon became the youngest correspondent ever hired by ABC Radio News. Nightline grew out of nightly reports on the Iran hostage crisis.

Pi Kappa Alpha member George Nissen, a champion Iowa gymnast, invented which piece of gym equipment?

The trampoline took its name from trampolín, a Spanish word for springboard that Nissen heard while touring Mexico. Circus safety nets had given him the idea.

Pi Kappa Alpha's preamble calls for the promotion of brotherly love and which other two-word quality?

Kind feeling is paired with brotherly love in the preamble's second clause. The fraternity's own history calls that pairing the founders' simple mission.

From 1889, Pi Kappa Alpha limited new chapters to the territory south of which famous American boundary?

The Mason-Dixon Line rule fell in 1909, when a convention abolished every geographic limit on expansion. A Missouri mining school had already become the first chapter outside the South in 1905.

Which title, taken from a fraternity song by B. E. Shields, did Pi Kappa Alpha first award nationally in 1950?

Dream Girl comes from a song composed for a fraternity songbook that a convention authorized in 1915. Thirty-five years later another convention elected the first national Dream Girl.

What does Pi Kappa Alpha call the tribute in its headquarters rotunda to brothers who died in military service?

The Gold Star Memorial was added in 2008 at the center of the entry rotunda, making it the first thing a visitor meets. The whole building was conceived as a monument to the fraternity's war dead.

Pi Kappa Alpha was founded in Room 47 of which row of student rooms at the University of Virginia?

West Range also names the street of the fraternity's headquarters, which stands at 8347 West Range Cove. The fraternity maintains the founding room as its birthplace.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha member from the University of Utah wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People?

Stephen Covey followed his Utah business degree with a Harvard MBA and a doctorate from Brigham Young. Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Americans of 1996.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha chapter president at Howard College later coached Florida State to two national titles?

Bobby Bowden was elected president of his chapter as a junior and again as a senior at Howard College, since renamed Samford. His Florida State teams were national champions in 1993 and 1999.

Which goggle-wearing Pi Kappa Alpha member from Clemson won three straight NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls?

Horace Grant kept wearing his goggles even after eye surgery, because he had become an inspiration to children who played sports in glasses.

Pi Kappa Alpha member Steve Prefontaine ran for which university under Bill Bowerman, the co-founder of Nike?

Oregon's Prefontaine won four straight collegiate titles at three miles or 5,000 meters and finished fourth at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He died in a car crash at 24.

Pi Kappa Alpha chartered its Beta chapter, exactly one year after its founding, at which North Carolina school?

Davidson College got the charter on March 1, 1869, because the founders saw within a year that growth was critical to survival. The chapter lapsed in 1870 and was not revived until 1894.

In which city did Pi Kappa Alpha's 1909 convention end its Southern-only rule and adopt the present coat of arms?

New Orleans is where the fraternity declared itself national, with 30 active chapters and 346 active brothers. The coat of arms adopted there has kept its symbolism ever since.

Which fragrant flower, sold across France every May 1, is the official flower of Pi Kappa Alpha?

Lily of the valley is sweetly scented but highly poisonous if eaten, and that includes its small red berries.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha magazine began in 1890 as The Pi Kappa Alpha Journal before taking its present name?

Shield & Diamond takes its name from two of the fraternity's symbols. The Dagger and Key, named for two more, is a separate secret publication issued after each convention.

What title does Pi Kappa Alpha give the four delegates who revived the fraternity at its 1889 convention?

Junior Founders is the name for the men who met in a dorm room when only four chapters were left active. Their convention ended almost a decade of decline.

Which founder first conceived the idea of Pi Kappa Alpha and pitched it to his cousin and roommate?

Frederick Southgate Taylor later practiced law in Norfolk and served two terms in the Virginia House of Delegates. The fraternity credits his efforts with getting the brotherhood organized.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha founder, admitted at the second meeting, first suggested the committee that wrote the preamble?

William Alexander was the youngest of the six and outlived the other five, dying in 1937. He spent more than 65 years with the Equitable Life Assurance Society.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha leader wrote its modern initiation ceremony in 1891 and gives his name to its top chapter award?

Robert Adger Smythe also printed the first issue of the fraternity's journal in 1890, while serving as Grand Secretary and Treasurer. He retired in 1933 as honorary life president.

Pi Kappa Alpha's 1889 refounding convention met in the Iota chapter's hall at which Virginia school?

Hampden–Sydney College hosted the meeting five days before Christmas, when dwindling membership had put the fraternity near collapse. The delegates rebuilt its system of government.

Which governing body of Pi Kappa Alpha grew out of the restructuring agreed at its 1889 convention?

Supreme Council is the present name for the system of governance that delegates created to save the fraternity. Twenty-five chapters opened over the next 20 years.

The Pi Kappa Alpha preamble seeks mutual benefit for those the founders "deem worthy of" what?

Our regard closes the preamble's third aim, the advancement of the interests of those with whom the founders sympathize. Only after it does the sentence resolve to form a fraternity.

The committee behind Pi Kappa Alpha's preamble was asked to draw up a statement of the fraternity's what?

Origin and organization were the brief given to Robertson Howard and Littleton Waller Tazewell. Their resulting statement became known as the preamble.

Pi Kappa Alpha founder Julian Edward Wood served in the cadet color guard at which 1864 Virginia battle?

New Market is the battle where the cadet corps of the Virginia Military Institute helped secure a Confederate victory. Wood later practiced medicine for more than 30 years in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Which Pi Kappa Alpha member led the US First Army when it crossed the Rhine at Remagen in 1945?

Courtney Hodges joined the fraternity at North Georgia, was dismissed from West Point for failing geometry, enlisted in the ranks and rose all the way to four-star general.

Which Hall of Fame receiver nicknamed Bambi, a Pi Kappa Alpha member from Arkansas, starred for the Chargers?

Lance Alworth got the nickname from teammates because he had a baby face and could run like a deer. He was the first Hall of Famer whose career was spent mainly in the AFL.