It's that time of year again! Fraternities at the University of Delaware are looking to recruit. Sigma Phi Delta has an awesome rush schedule planned filled with dodgeball, RC car races, BBQs, wing tasting, professional talks, and good old brotherly love. We hope to see eager engineers looking to expand their horizons and make connections that will last far beyond the halls of UD. Come and join us during Rush Week for a great time, free food, awesome advice, and a hearty welcoming to the University of Delaware's College of Engineering. Check out our rush schedule at www.sigphipsi.com/rush.htm. (And yes, that is an LED decorated castle.)

The forces of DRCWULP, once again led by Alumnus Evan Vanarelli, enlisted in what shall now be known as the War of Outsider Aggression. The poor souls challenging this year: a mix up of players allying themselves with 6 members of the marine reserves toting custom weaponry. We were all too eager to meet the enemy head to head. The fray was entered in the usual manner, knee deep in mud. DRCWULP began the day learning the advantage of custom weaponry after a hardy defeat. It became clear that victory would come, not due to any sort of combat skill, but to battlefield planning and... whatever stupid sh*t we could pull out of our backsides. The DRCWULP forces resorted to the usual plan – throw Sigma Class at the dangerous bits. Brothers Spoodle and Murderface took the fire valiantly allowing the rest of the group to flank or do whatever people do in battle when not getting shot. Over the course of the war, the battles were fought in bunkers, grasslands, jungles, in a castle, and on a boat. Durcwulp gave no ground and offered no quarter. At the end of the day the men of DRCWULP had changed. Their spirits were damaged by the carnage they saw and their clothes were covered by a thick coat of paint. There may come a day when Sigma Phi Delta will have to take up arms again. Any enemy should know that we will always be willing to meet them in simulated combat. For glory, honor, or fun. Till next time.

On 5/7/11, the strapping lads of Sigma Phi Delta gathered with our sister sorority Alpha Omega Epsilon for our yearly formal at Timothy's in Wilmington. Several conflicting reports may give credence to the rumors that foreign activities, such as “dancing” and “mingling,” may have occurred between the two organizations. Whatever occurred that night in Wilmington, the Sigma Phi Delta organization can report a 0% fatality rate during the course of the event. The tradition lives another year!!!

Whoever said philanthropy was the dullest part of Greek life has never seen how Psi Chapter does it. This year, the Psi chapter continued its tradition of supporting the annual RamJam concert, an event supporting the efforts of Engineers Without Borders. The event is a day long benefit concert featuring local bands such as Spokey Speaky, Mad-Sweet Pangs, and 61 North. For those volunteering, it means that their shifts were covered by live music, which in this writers opinion is the best way to spend a work day. Sunburns, acoustic guitars, and bonfires are of course the mandatory way to end such an event. This writer would like to give a shoutout to Alumnus Porkchop for organizing another successful RamJam.

Some people celebrate Christmas as their favourite time of year, others choose warmer holidays like Independence Day. For the men of Sigma Phi Delta, our favorite holiday is Founder's Day. It is a time for alumni and actives to come together as one and celebrate the signing of the declaration of frathood in the Red Barn on a fateful day in 1924. In keeping with the founder's location of a barn, the event was celebrated in a barn-like garage. The torrential rainfall did nothing to dampen the mood as the barbecue kept the attendees fed late into the evening. The attendees left the event, muddy, bruised and soaked to the bone, just as we all know the founders would have wanted it.

Some Greek organizations choose to complete their community service with bake sales, or mile walks, but Psi Chapter does not do philanthropy by half measure. We choose to participate in the annual Plane Pull competition for the benefit of Special Olympics Delaware. Teams from all over Delaware compete to overcome the static and kinetic friction between an AC-130 and the ground. This Historian is proud to report that the Psi chapter managed to generate a greater force per member this year than the Delaware ROTC team. We would like to thank Alumni Toone, Harbison, and Parkhurst for attending and supporting the endeavour.

Lock up your daughters, lock up your wives, 'cause as the scholars say, the sh*t gets real when two chapters collide. This weekend the Psi Chapter hosted the Virginia Tech chapter for a weekend of Shenanigans and good, old-fashioned debauchery. One Virginia Tech brother and several pledges were in attendance. On Friday and Saturday night, the two fraternities hosted a pasta dinner at 49 1/2 N Chapel,and a barbecue at 11 Wilbur with the lovely ladies of Alpha Omega Epsilon. The V-Tech pledges left Delaware Sunday night, thoroughly exhausted, properly reviewed, and more importantly, they left knowing what it takes to be a member of Psi Chapter. See ya next year Gents!

With Rush Week concluded, the Sigma Phi Delta Fraternity would like to welcome its two new pledges Matthew Benjes and Andrew Caulfield. After an extraordinary buffet style dinner at Kate’s, the new pledges were formally inducted as the Upsilon Pledge Class. It is important to note that absolutely nothing else worth mentioning happened over the course of the evening. The picture included once again has nothing to do with discussed events. Pi is a wonderful irrational number.

It was on September 10th that the good old boys of Sigma Phi Delta came together to show support for NALFO by attending their production of “The Truth About Relationships.” The production, written by Pastor Barry JT DeVine, and featuring musical numbers by Ronald Draper, turned out to be exactly the star-studded performance we had all hoped for. We laughed and we cried, utterly unable to repress the emotions invoked by the talented cast of whimsical characters. The event was attended by brothers Noob, Jer Bear, Spoodle, Pablo, Cannoli, Bones, Mclovin, and Chef. The night concluded with Rock Band at Brother Grossbach’s apartment. The picture above has nothing to do with the events of the evening, but I find it funny and I’m the one writing the articles.

Disaster struck the Sigma Phi Delta Psi Chapter on Saturday the 8th of May as the first shot in the conflict formally known as DRCWULP was fired at 12:17pm eastern standard time in the backwoods of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The rebel DRCWULP Army, led by commander Evan Vanarelli, fell upon the Loyalists, led by Tompall Toone, with a fury unmatched in the annals of history. After 7 hours of brutal, unyielding combat (unyielding except for a quick lunch break), Tompall's forces finally buckled under the overwhelming badassitude of DRCWULP's members. With the Loyalists routed, DRCWULP was free to pillage and salt the earth as they saw fit. Lacking any sizable quantity of salt, they were forced to do the next best thing, make Tompall ride home with Harbison. Order was returned the next day, as Chief Engineer Evan Vanarelli, having taken the position from Tompall Toone, passed his position to John DeLucca. The dust had settled, the bruises had healed and the conflict was finally over. A memorial was erected upon the wall of 236 East Delaware Ave, commemorating the day of the victory, and reminding the world that the DRCWULP nation will not perish from the earth.

In other news: fraternity paintball went well.

In the inevitable manner of such things, this evening’s rush event devolved from its intended lofty auspices of preforming science to a bunch of dudes eating pizza. And though the room stank of our cumulative odor (Stimpy), and though the jokes were terrible (JerBear) and offensive (McLovin), a good time was had by all. In this context, “all” excludes Chum, Zorro, and Spoodle, but includes seven rushes and two alumni. In time, chairs were abandoned in favor of closer positions to the pizza. Gathered around the pizzas and trudged through the standard conversation of majors and housing until we started to recount the misadventures and fortunes of our brothers and alumni. Despite the vast amounts of maturity that our fraternity manages to attract, Yogi and Pablo both saw the sour end of our “Pay to the order of…” stamp. Similarly enjoyable was the discussion of convolutions led by self-proclaimed Ayatollah of the Internets, Chief-ELEG, Kingpin.