Chi Omega was founded on April 5, 1895 at the University of Arkansas. Ina May Boles, Jean Vincenheller, Jobelle Holcombe, and Alice Simonds, with guidance from Fayetteville dentist, Dr. Charles Richardson, a Kappa Sigma, created the organization. Dr. Richardson was known as “Sis Doc” to generations of Psi Chapter members (the founding chapter at Arkansas is known as the Psi Chapter) and he is counted as a founder. He crafted Chi Omega’s first badge out of dental gold.
Photo courtesy of the Student Life and Culture Archives, University of Illinois.
The Eighth Biennial Convention of Chi Omega took place in Boulder, Colorado from June 20-27, 1914. Room and board would not exceed $2.50 per day, according to the pre-convention information. It was a camping convention; Chi Omega’s first camping convention. Attendees were warned, “See to it that your wardrobe is in harmony with it.”
The schedule of events:
This is what automobiles looked like in 1914. The automobile trip to Estes Park would likely have been in automobiles looking like this.
Convention attendees, 1914 (Courtesy of SLCA)
The banquet menu:
Opened in 1898, the Colorado Chautauqua where the Chi Omegas met that summer of 1914 is now one of only 25 National Historic Landmarks in the state of Colorado and one of the few remaining chautauquas in the U.S. Chi Omegas can go visit the site of the 1914 convention and reflect upon what it would have been like for those collegians gathering from all corners of the U.S. in that summer more than a century ago.
Auditorium at the Colorado Chautuaqua in Boulder.
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Happy 35th Founders’ Day to Lambda Sigma Upsilon, founded on April 5, 1979, by 20 men at Rutgers University. It is a Latino oriented fraternity.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2015. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
