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A renewed sense of brotherhood and a repaired house have left the brothers of the Pi Kappa Alpha (PIKE) fraternity at the University of Maine with a fresh start for this school year.

The PIKE brothers have reopened their house less than a year after the Orono code enforcement officer and the fire marshal condemned it due to water damage.

“You don’t realize how much you value something until it’s gone,” said PIKE External Vice President Jayson Neault.

At the beginning of last school year, PIKE hired a contractor to place an addition onto their fraternity house. During homecoming weekend, the tarp covering the construction came off during a rainstorm, causing condemnation of the house and 19 UMaine students and one advisor to lose their residence.

“They first said it would only be 48 hours to two weeks,” said PIKE Internal Vice President Tom Dickens, “but it became apparent that it wasn’t a likely outcome. We were all homeless, without food and clothing.”

UMaine helped the students get accommodations at the University Inn for the first month before the brothers had to find their own housing.

Clause eight in PIKE’s former contract said if the house became unlivable, the agreement for renting became “null and void.” Although the university provided three on-campus housing spots for brothers, the rest had to find their own place to live.

“We had 20 subcontractors working throughout the night on everything, but the money ran out. The insurance company gave us an estimate, but we didn’t get the money for a long time,” Dickens said.

During the spring semester, four brothers started a corporation to take over the rights to rent the PIKE  house and property. The new corporation created new housing contracts and had 26 brothers sign leases for this school year.

“We became brother-owned and brother-operated. We are the first fraternity on campus to be organized the way we are and [the] first PIKE chapter nationally,” Dickens said.

The PIKE brothers have faced several monetary challenges, including a $160,000 housing expense and a collective $200,000 budget, all managed by the brothers.

“There’s no learning experience that a 20- to 21-year-old college student could have to be more beneficial to their future than running a corporation. A real, legitimate, liable corporation. It’s a huge adjustment for us,” Dickens said.

Three weeks before school started this year, the brothers came back to Orono to help finish construction before inspection day. An anonymous person donated $10,000 to help with the costs.

“We don’t have the alumni base that other chapters on campus have,” Dickens said. “We just happened to be very fortunate.”

On Aug. 19, the PIKE house passed inspection and reopened.

“There was a lot of doubt,” Neault said. “This was a make-or-break day.”

“We’re certainly stronger than we’ve ever been before. This is a blessing in disguise,” Dickens said.

PIKE plans to be active on campus and focus on rebuilding their chapter members’ grade point average.

“During this whole process, our chapter GPA significantly dropped because people were just trying to live; they couldn’t focus on school. Our big goal is academics,” said PIKE President Ben Cohen.

“We came full circle. Where we go one, we go all,” said Dickens “We all walked out together … but eventually walked next to each other back in.”

• Women’s basketball bounces back (February 4, 2008)
• Softball squad bounces back after stumbling out of the gates (March 17, 2005)
• UM bounces back to earn split with BU (February 20, 2006)
• Beta, Pike fraternities hit in string of vandalism (November 17, 2005)
• UMaine students promote awareness of homelessness by trying it out themselves (February 2, 2009)

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009, 2:12 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.