FALL 2025
THE PI KAPP GATOR THE ALUMNI NEWSLETTER OF PI KAPPA PHI AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
CHAIRMAN’S LETTER Welcome Back! This edition is our first Pi Kapp Gator in about 18 months, so we have quite a bit to catch up on. The Alpha (Awesome) Epsilon Chapter celebrated 100 years at UF in 2024. As most of you know, we hosted a well-attended reception at Touchdown Terrace at BHG Stadium during our local Founders’ Day weekend. Pi Kappa Phi National Headquarters recognized the event as the alumni event of the year. Many thanks to Mark Timmes and the alumni board for putting together such a great event. We also celebrated and thanked two gentlemen who have worked tirelessly for 11 years, leading our chapter to places we could only dream of. Mike Sullivan (AE 886), Bob Halcrow (AE 868) and many others took on the good, the bad and the ugly as they led the effort to start from nothing. They built a beautiful new chapter house, and more importantly, they cultivated chapter leaders who built our chapter into one of the strongest houses on campus in only a few years. Mike and Bob think they stepped back, but they can never get away. The new board continues to rely on them for guidance and advice.
As the undergraduate chapter and our alumni organization begin the 2025-26 academic year, we have many new challenges. For better or worse, fraternity life is different than most of us remember. Living arrangements, house maintenance, associate member education, initiation and almost everything else have evolved. This edition of the Pi Kapp Gator has great stories about our incredible scholarship program, our rock star new house mom, Denby Smothers, and future events we have planned. You’ll soon read more about changes to the AE Gator Club and other cool projects like the brick walkway and Bert’s beautiful bell. I encourage you to get involved and attend an event. You’d be surprised who you’ll see and reconnect with. At a minimum, please stay in touch and encourage those Pi Kapps close to you to do the same. We have a great website at pikappgator. org and social media accounts you can follow. The best way to stay connected is to create an account on the website or to log in to the Pi Kapp Hub to provide your updated contact info. Moving forward, we hope to publish multiple online editions of the Pi Kapp Gator and at least one printed version each year. I hope to see you soon!
DAVE BODEN, AE 1337 Chairman Alpha Epsilon Alumni Chapter skuboden@gmail.com (310) 977-6030
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