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The first five years saw the establishment of many interesting social customs which have become traditional with Beta Chis. The minutes of 1911 record a hearty vote to present the Kappa Alpha Fraternity with a Kappa pennant on two different occasions. It was the custom to exchange pennants and shields as pledges of good fellowship. When the Kappas initiated four girls in 1915, the Kappa Alpha Fraternity sent them a congratulatory bouquet of four dozen roses. The girls responded with an “open house,” honoring the Kappa Alphas, and this event evolved into a monthly tea for all the men’s fraternities. Keys were in vogue as wedding presents. Pie knives for Kappa brides were substituted, and the custom of presenting a spoon with the Kappa coat of arms on it to the first Kappa baby was instituted.
Life within the Chapter was taken up with rushing, charity work, Kappa work, and financial regulations. The dues were gradually raised from the sum of fifty cents a month to a dollar and twenty-five cents a month. In 1912, the actives contributed fifty cents apiece for the Book of Ritual. Even before the WWI, Beta Chi Chapter was doing charity and relief work. In 1916, it was customary for the girls to do a certain amount of settlement work each week. At Christmas time, they filled stockings busily to send to a mountain school. In early March, the Chapter assumed the obligation of dressing and educating a young Kentucky mountain girl of high school age. When she married, her place was filled by a French war orphan supported by the Chapter.
Beta Chi also aided during WWI. The girls knitted the usual socks and sweaters, and each member contributed something to the Belgian Relief Fund, the total being given in Kappa’s name. The girls worked in the Red Cross corps, bought Liberty Bonds, and sent a money contribution across the seas in the name of the Fraternity. To Mary E. Sweeny, leaving for the war front to do canteen work, the Chapter gave a radium-dial wrist watch as a parting gift. Following closely on the tragedy of the war was a terrible automobile accident in which four University of Kentucky men lost their lives. The influenza epidemic swept over the school in the same year, and all activities were abandoned.
==Highlights of the 1940s:==
During World War II, Beta Chi, eager to serve on a campus where only ten percent of the student body consisted of civilian men, contributed its iron grille fence to the scrap metal drive. The Maxwell house was sold and the Delta Tau Delta house on Audubon Park was rented. During the Warwar, men’s fraternities were vacant. Many Kappas, who were victims of gas rationing, thumbed their way in and out from the main campus. After the war, the house at 232 East Maxwell Street was bought and lived in for the next ten years.
The achievements of Beta Chi’s honored member, Sarah Blanding, who was the recipient of the Alumnae Achievement Award in 1947, are nationally known. However, perhaps only Beta Chis remember that she was honored as an undergraduate in 1922 by being unanimously elected to play Santa Claus for the annual Christmas party. Blanding Tower, as well as the low-rise Blanding I, II, III, and IV dormitories on the University of Kentucky’s campus, are named after Sarah Blanding.
