Delta Rho

Ball State University

A new chapter of Alpha Phi was established on the campus of a school enjoying fabulous growth. Gamma Theta local sorority of Ball State in Muncie, Indiana, became Delta Rho chapter of Alpha Phi on Saturday 7, 1964.

Dr. John Emens, Ball State’s dynamic president, was the speaker at the Delta Rho installation banquet Saturday night in the VanOrman Roberts Hotel at Muncie. The banquet followed the morning initiation of the Alpha Phi collegiate chapter of forty women and eleven Gamma Theta sorority alumnae and eight Muncie women. 

Iris Kaufman Lerch (Gamma-DePauw), of Muncie, former international director of alumnae, served as adviser to the collegiates at Ball State as they prepared for chapter status. Althea Stoeckel (Delta Rho-Ball State) and Dr. William Tomlinson of the faculty were advisers from that group. Sue Raulerson Palmer (Beta-Northwestern), field secretary, spent over three weeks on campus as consultant to the chapter preceding the installation. The chapter has a suite in the Sharley B. DeMotte Wing of Grace DeHority Hall, one of a group of handsome new residence halls on campus.

New member services were conducted in the Student Center on Sunday, September 20 by the Purdue (Delta Mu) chapter. Initiation on Saturday, November 8, at the First Presbyterian Church, adjacent to Grace DeHority Hall, was likewise conducted by the Purdue chapter, headed by its president, Jane Crisler (Delta Mu-Purdue).

The new chapter was presented a gavel made from a stairway baluster of the first chapter house at Syracuse and a memorabilia book sent by Edith Nottongham Loveland (Alpha-Syracuse), international memorabilia chairman; a Bible from the Executive Board, and a satin banner with an Alpha Phi crest from the Muncie-Anderson alumnae chapter. Janet Bleile (Delta Rho-Ball State) received a president’s pin, a gift from all Indiana alumnae chapters. To Doris Corbett (Delta Rho-Ball State), the newly installed chapter presented a check for the Alpha Phi Foundation.

On Sunday morning the group attended services at the First Presbyterian Church. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon a model chapter meeting was conducted at the Student Center and was followed by a reception from 3 to 5 o’clock in the Terrace Room of the Center for Ball State faculty and students, parents and friends of chapter members and alumnae.