The Hype

Unfurnished Business: Chapter makes 2614 home

by Andrew Chew and Jacob Sloan

Since Acacia's arrival in 2614, the chapter's main concern has been making it an asset for rush and point of pride by making it look impressive and not letting it fall into an empty and disheveled mess. Many actives and their families were able to donate some furniture to the house to make it more inviting, but we still needed some new items to really fill out the house.

Back in the fall, Brother David Opperman was nice enough to give us a call to inform us his office was relocating to a furnished building and allowed us to take whatever furniture we may need from his current office. Chapter Advisor Rob Mickam rented a U-Haul truck for the actives one weekend, and we all rode down to Houston. From the office, we collected a great deal of items such as the conference table now in our study, couches and office equipment. The truck was filled in just a few hours, and we felt like we had just cleaned the place out.

After unloading the truck in Austin, the house began to look like our a home for us. Despite the bounty that we received from Brother Opperman, we still needed an attractive new couch set since all the furniture we currently had in the common areas was passed down from actives or their families. To tackle this necessity, Brother Mickam immediately requested for funds from Brother Walter Demond and the alumni association to help us buy a new couch set.

The funding we received was more than generous and helped us purchase four matching black Dura-Hide couches that are now in constant use and loved by actives and guests alike. The couches definitely make watching the 52” big screen television that Brother Mickam donated to teh common room much more pleasant.

These additions have already made the common room more of a central location in which residents and actives can congregate or hold fraternity meetings. We hope that further contributions and improvements will bring more brothers into this common area and make it not only a place where every active and rushee wants to be but also a comfortable place for our alumni to stop by when they are in the area.

Additonally, a great deal of thanks is due to our housing board of which Brother Z. Smith has been a huge part. With our massive residence being one of the many properties that Brother Smith manages, it is almost impossible to expect that he be able to solely tend to our requests. The active chapter has been extremely happy with his attention this semester and the amount of improvements that the actives and housing board have been able to do together. Brother Smith's hard work and dedication to helping the Texas Chapter return to its original glory is much appreciated. The active chapter will continue to aid the housing board and Brother Smith in making sure that 2614 undergoes extensive improvements until it is the envy of the entire Texas Greeks system.

Credit is also due to the undergraduates who have sacrificed time outside of classes and regular fraternity business to maintain our hosue. Last year's house manager, Brother Jonathan Bahr set the bar high--no pun intended--and our two house managers this semester, Brother Seamus McAfee and Brother Adam Miller, have spent most of their first semester trying to tend to the complaints and suggestions of the brothers in the house. Thanks to their work and constant correspondence with Brother Smith, we have been able to fix most of our electrical problems, add vending machines to the common area, fix our bathrooms and add some new additions to the property. Brother McAfee also doubled as our project manager and has a myriad of projects that he wishes to complete before the end of this fall. Many thanks are deserved by the Acacians as it would have been difficult for the active chapter alone to have attempted these improvements.

We thank those of you who have supported our efforts to improve 2614 and hope you will stay in touch if you have any items that may be able to make our house a more impressive property on the Texas campus. You can contact our house managers by emailing our officer contact email if you have anything to donate or would like to find out how you can help.