Homecoming Float 1964, Lambda Chi Alpha

Homecoming Float 1964, Lambda Chi Alpha
https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23840

By the early 1960s, annual fall homecoming celebrations had become premier campus events combining showcase football games, homecoming courts topped by kings and queens, concerts in Wright Auditorium, off-campus parties, and various alumni reunions. As with May Day events, homecomings also featured festive parades that typically proceeded through downtown Greenville, livening up the staid business district with vitality, color, and school spirit. By the 1950s, the homecoming parade, powered by readily available automobiles, trucks, and tractors, was widely appreciated as an expression of campus culture. With the early 1960s, fraternities and sororities emerged as key sponsors of elaborate floats offering playful iterations of school sensibilities. Making things more interesting, the floats competed for prizes recognizing creativity, design, and campus spirit. Pictured here is the Lambda Chi Alpha float from homecoming 1964, winner of the first place prize in the fraternity competition.

Earlier, ECC president John Messick had opposed the coming of Greek organizations to campus, but by the late 1950s, Messick had bowed to widespread campus support for them. In 1956, the ECC Board of Trustees approved temporary charters for four national fraternities, and in 1958, these four — Lambda Chi Alpha, Theta Chi, Kappa Alpha, and Pi Kappa Alpha – were formally chartered. Sororities soon emerged on campus as well so that by the 1960s, Greek life had become a conspicuous new presence at East Carolina.

The 1964 academic year was one of Lambda Chi Alpha’s most famous at East Carolina. That year, Lambda Chi was the largest fraternity at ECC, with approximately seventy-five active members. On the national level, it ranked second in scholarship in a competition involving 125 other Lambda Chi chapters. In the spring of 1964, Lambda Chi received considerable press attention for pulling a bathtub for 85 miles, from Greenville to Raleigh, as part of a fund raiser for a freshman scholarship. In that effort, it had the support of Governor Terry Sanford and the cooperation of the North Carolina Highway Patrol.

In the fall of 1964, Lambda Chi’s homecoming float won first prize in the fraternity division. Among other things, the float revealed the extent to which the school’s president, Dr. Leo W. Jenkins, was exceptionally popular among students and the community. Still a relatively young man, Jenkins was engaged in all aspects of ECC life, and most especially its athletic programs. The Lambda Chi float cast Jenkins as a “wizard” presiding over a large stone campus. This playfully featured “Scott Tower,” the New Union in Wright Building and “Aycock Tower.” The structure that would host the major event of the day, Ficklen Memorial Stadium, was at that time, Jenkins’ crowning achievement. The drive for university status was still in its early stages, as was the push for a medical school. But the new stadium where ECC would play its homecoming game was a reality, and Wizard Jenkins had done much to make it so. It was this “new EC” that the Lambda Chi float celebrated, noting how students “traveled far to come and be a part of Wizard Jenkins’ New EC.” The Lambda Chi float thus both reflected and contributed to the Jenkins legend.

However, as with many Greek organizations at ECU and across the nation, maintaining discipline and order within often proved to be a challenge. In 2010, just over fifty years after its founding, Lambda Chi Alpha’ national organization revoked its charter due to, among other things, failure to pay its national dues. It has yet to return, hopefully to make still grander contributions.

Sources

Citation Information

Title: Homecoming Float 1964, Lambda Chi Alpha

Author: John A. Tucker, PhD

Date of Publication: 7/18/2019

 

To top