Pi Kappa Phi at Purdue

Pi Kappa Phi hosted 160+ folks who attended our April 18 Moms Day celebration.

Our fraternity moms got to see the arrival of the 29th Annual Pi Kapp 100 team, which is a 100-kilometer cycling event to the Purdue campus arriving early afternoon. Moms also participated in a charity auction and banquet.

At the banquet, Robin Barbera talked about her experiences as a Pi Kapp mom speaking about how the fraternity made her son, Joe, a much better student and man.

We had a roundtable discussion at the end of the program highlighting what the chapter does for people with disabilities. Chapter member Max Barnett said volunteering gave him a new perspective on life. Joe Barbera talked about visiting other fraternities and being struck by what Pi Kappa Phi does in community service.

At the end, we presented our volunteer relationship Life Has No Boundaries executive director Alyssa Montgomery with a $15,000 check. The money comes our 2025 fund raising through a Circle of Giving Grant available to local agencies that embody the mission of The Ability Experience, the national fraternity’s outreach program for people with disabilities.

For a more detailed account of what happened at our April 18 Moms Day with quotes from speakers, you can find it on the chapter website:
https://purduepikapps.com/families-express-their-pride-during-annual-moms-day-event/

Here’s a link to the slideshow shown at Mom’s Day dinner recapping the last school year for the 175 folks in attendance. What a day!

2026 moms day slideshow-final.m4v

On Thursday afternoon, the chapter hosted clients of our local partnership to come and see its Grand Prix kart and to celebrate a donation to help both efforts.

Alumnus Joe Cox arranged a grant through the foundation set up for his late daughter Abigail, of Fishers, Indiana, who died in a tragic traffic accident in 2023 to assist Life Has No Boundaries, a non-profit that provides day services for people with disabilities. The undergraduate members volunteer with those day activities for the non-profit on a regular basis throughout the school year. Ab's Angels, in turn, supports various non-profits throughout the state.

Furthermore, Life Has No Boundaries clients and teachers support the chapter’s Grand Prix kart and Thursday got to visit with the driver and crew.

More than 50 chapter members interacted with more than a dozen clients for soccer, basketball and sidewalk chalking for more than an hour.

The partnership is an outreach program that brings home the mission of The Ability Experience, the national fraternity’s philanthropic effort assisting people with disabilities nationally and locally.

On Monday night Sullivan Wengrowski of Zeta Tau Alpha was crowned the 2026 Pi Kappa Phi Rose Queen after six different events over a 10-day period.

During the week plus of events, Pi Kappa Phi was able to raise $18,017 (and still counting) for the Ability Experience, the national fraternity’s outreach program for people with disabilities.

Congratulations also to the various individual event competition winners. They include:
• Delta Zeta, sheet sign
• Zeta Tau Alpha, dodgeball
• Kappa Delta, trivia
• Zeta Tau Alpha, game night
• Chi Omega, fundraising
• Gamma Phi Beta, talent show

Supporters of the cause can still donate at:
https://support.abilityexperience.org/fundraisers/omegapurdue

Thanks to our participants: Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, Delta Zeta, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Mu and Zeta Tau Alpha.

Members of the nine sororities competing to crown the next Rose Queen of Pi Kappa Phi competed in a series of games during the third event of the 2026 War of the Roses event on Thursday night.

Zeta Tau Alpha won the Jenga competition among queen candidates. Kappa Kappa Gamma was the runners-up.
Individual candidate fund-raising, t-shirt sales, ticket sales and performance at the 6 p.m., Monday, April 6 talent show are all that remain in this year’s competition. The big winner from the philanthropic effort is The Ability Experience, Pi Kappa Phi’s national outreach program assisting people with disabilities.

Monday’s talent show – the grand finale of the 10-day War of the Roses – will be held at Purdue’s Fowler Hall located in Stewart Center. Tickets are available at the door.

Thus far the event has raised more than $10,000. You can support the efforts at:
https://support.abilityexperience.org/fundraiser/OmegaPurdue

Pi Kappa Phi wishes to again thank the nine competing sororities for making the event happen: Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, Delta Zeta, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Mu and Zeta Tau Alpha.

Congratulations to Kappa Delta, which won a final best of 3 competition, as the winner of the Pi Kappa Phi War of the Roses trivia contest on Tuesday night.

Kappa Delta had tied with Zeta Tau Alpha at the end of three rounds of competition. So, the fraternity improvised a three-set history question. The final question was what campus building is named after the only female Purdue president. The answer was the Co-Rec (France Cordova Recreational Sports Center).

Thank you to the organizations that participated in the second event the War of the Roses event, which will crown the 2026 Rose Queen at a 6 p.m. talent show in Fowler Hall of Purdue’s Stewart Center.

Organizations include: Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, Delta Zeta, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Phi Mu and Zeta Tau Alpha.

You can support the cause or a specific candidate at:
https://support.abilityexperience.org/fundraiser/OmegaPurdue

Congratulations to Zeta Tau Alpha as the winners of Saturday’s dodgeball as the event in the Pi Kappa Phi annual War of the Roses.

Nine teams are competing for their representative to be crowned Rose Queen for 2026.

Thank you to ZTA along with Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Phi, Delta Zeta, Delta Zeta, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma and Phi Mu for being part of the WOR over a 10-day period. Participating sororities, earn points in fund raising, t-shirt sales, ticket sales to the April 6 talent show along with competition in dodgeball (Saturday), trivia (Tuesday), second-chance prom with Special Olympics (Wednesday) and game night (Thursday).

The crowing event will be a talent show in Fowler Hall in Purdue’s Stewart Center from 6-7:30 p.m. on April 6. Tickets can be purchased at the door.

The next event will be trivia competition on Tuesday in Purdue’s Lilly Hall of Life Sciences, Room G126.
You can support the cause at:

https://support.abilityexperience.org/fundraiser/OmegaPurdue

Pi Kappa Phi added 27 new initiates into the brotherhood on Feb. 22 bringing the all-time membership to 2,251.

The newest initiates include:
• Sam Abiodun, freshman from Southlake, Texas, engineering

• Max Barnett, freshman from Westfield, Indiana, selling and sales

• Keshav Chambria, sophomore from Dublin, Ohio, engineering

• Santanio Crudele-Sands, freshman from New Canaan, Connecticut, engineering

• Cayden DeSmet, freshman from Valparaiso, Indiana, marketing and public health

• Alex Duvnjak, junior from Schererville, Indiana, engineering

• Luke Ellis, freshman from Fort Wayne, Indiana, finance and accounting

• Johnny Ewing, freshman from Westfield, Indiana, business analytics and information management

• Jacob George, freshman from Richmond, Indiana, business analytics and information management

• Owen Gruninger, freshman from Kirkwood, Missouri, engineering

• Ben Haug, freshman from Saratoga, California, marketing

• Sagar Joshi, sophomore from Holland, Ohio, engineering

• Ian Kennedy, freshman from Valparaiso, Indiana, professional flight

• Ben McLaughlin, sophomore from New Lenox, Illinois, finance

• Will McKee, freshman from Carmel, Indiana, kinesiology

• Aidan Kinnisten, freshman from New Albany, Ohio, computer science

• Johann Meissiner, freshman from Lake Forest, Illinois, finance

• Landon Miklautsh, freshman from Sammamish, Washington, engineering

• Adam Nicolson, freshman from Reisterstown, Maryland, engineering

• Michael Noonan, freshman from Mokena, Illinois, engineering

• Ethan Norris, freshman from Overland Park, Kansas, finance

• Ty Phares, freshman from Carmel, Indiana, general management

• Matthew Schilt, freshman from Carmel, Indiana, biomedical health sciences

• Cale Thompson, freshman from Fishers, Indiana, exploratory studies

• Oliver Walseth, freshman from Maple Grove, Minnesota, engineering

• Jensen Woodruff, freshman from Carmel, Indiana, selling and sales management

• Wells Wright, freshman from Carmel, Indiana, finance and accounting

Pi Kappa Phi continues to set the standard for success in the Purdue University Greek community.

Statistics from fall semester 2025 were recently released for rankings in four areas – community service hours, membership numbers, philanthropic dollars raised and grade point averages.

Pi Kappa Phi was…
• No. 1 in community service hours (7,180, 15% more than closest other chapter)
• No. 3 in size (164, IFC average was 94)
• No. 3 in philanthropic dollars raised ($23,664)
• No. 8 in grades at 3.29 average GPA (the all-fraternity average was 3.19)
Pi Kappa Phi was the only fraternity in the Top 10 of each of the four statistical categories.

Individually…
• 77% of the members were at a 3.0 or higher
• 54% percent earned academic honors
• 10 members had a 4.0 semester GPA (4 of them have a 4.0 cumulative GPA)

The spring 2026 pledge class hails from seven different states and the plurality of them are engineering students.

Seven of the 18 new members come from Indiana, three from both Ohio and Illinois, two from California and one each from Connecticut, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The new class are enrolled in six different schools at Purdue with six in engineering. Four of them major in business, three in construction management, three in science, two in professional flight and one in health sciences.

Seven of the newcomers graduated with honors diplomas, four were athletic team captains while another four were presidents of a club in high school. There was one valedictorian and one salutatorian in the group as well as one on a state championship golf team in Ohio and another was a state medalist in swimming, also in Ohio. And onewas on student council.

All 18 are second-semester freshmen. They were chosen from more than 200 men who went through the spring recruitment period.

The new members include:
• Neel Chatterjee, San Mateo, California, first-year engineering
• Tommy Chen, Chicago, Illinois, finance & accounting
• Jake Coyle, Lake Zurich, Illinois, finance
• Samuel Cormany, Fort Wayne, Indiana, construction management
• Andrew Guidroz, Lawrenceburg, Indiana, professional flight
• Ethan Hoagland, Carmel, Indiana, construction management
• Kharai Leinbach, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, professional flight
• Max King, Traverse City, Michigan, chemical engineering
• Cam Mateyo, Cleveland, Ohio, first-year engineering
• Auggie Matushek, Whiting, Indiana, finance
• Riku Miiwa, San Francisco, California, biochemistry
• AJ Overton, Terre Haute, Indiana, finance & accounting
• Henry Pierce, Cleveland, Ohio, first-year engineering
• Drew Ryser, Warsaw, Indiana, biomedical health sciences
• Matt Vrba, Batavia, Illinois, first-year engineering
• Max Weber, Canton, Ohio, first-year engineering
• Sam White, Richmond, Indiana, construction management
• Max Zelikman, Stamford, Connecticut, computer science