Before Pi Kappa Phi, there was Nu Phi, a small group of friends at the College of Charleston who founded an organization called Nu Phi, meaning “non-fraternity,” seeking an independent voice apart from the fraternity-dominated campus. 

Their plan was bold: to win control of the Chrestomathic Literary Society, the College’s magazine. However, when the vote was taken, some Nu Phi members broke ranks and supported the fraternity slate instead. The loss stung, not just because they lost an election, but because their own members betrayed them.  

Unwilling to surrender, the seven loyal Nu Phis regrouped. They met in classrooms and on Wentworth Street, kept coded minutes and announced meetings with a traced hand on a chalkboard, the time and place written inside. That drawing became a symbol of defiance and possibility. On December 10, 1904, the seven loyal Nu Phis reorganized themselves and proclaimed that they were indeed a fraternity: Pi Kappa Phi. 

Emerging in 1904, Pi Kappa Phi quickly became known on the College of Charleston’s campus as “the new fraternity.”  

As they embarked on establishing this new fraternity, Andrew Alexander Kroeg, Jr., drove the vision; Simon Fogarty, Jr., opened his home at 90 Broad Street as the first gathering place and Lawrence Harry Mixson carefully documented their meeting minutes and decisions. Together, they began to sketch out what a different kind of fraternity could look like at the College of Charleston. 

Each of the three Founders brought a distinct personality and set of talents. Still, despite their differences, they united around friendship and a shared desire to build something unlike the other fraternities they had seen. The “new fraternity” was not meant to be a fleeting college club. It was a brotherhood rooted in loyalty, scholarship and character, created by men who believed their undergraduate decisions could shape something greater and last far beyond their own years on campus. 

When Nu Phi’s plan failed and the group split, seven men chose to remain loyal, not to the old name, but to one another and to the ideal they hoped to live out. Their loyalty became the starting point of a new brotherhood: Pi Kappa Phi. 

Andrew Alexander Kroeg Jr., Simon Fogarty Jr. and L. Harry Mixson are recognized as the Founders of Pi Kappa Phi. They formed the core leadership that conceived, organized and formally established the Fraternity in 1904, and shaped its original structure and identity.  

A. Pelzer Wagener, Thomas F. Mosimann, James Fogarty and Theodore Barnwell Kelly stood with them in the beginning as founding members of Pi Kappa Phi. They, alongside the Founders, signed the original charter, recruited brothers and helped bring the idea of “the new fraternity” to life.  

Pi Kappa Phi’s historical records reserve the title Founder for Kroeg, Fogarty and Mixson, while honoring all seven men — the loyal Nu Phis — who gave the Fraternity its start. 

Andrew Alexander Kroeg Jr. was just 19 years old when Pi Kappa Phi was founded, but brothers looked to him for direction. Serving as the first archon of Alpha Chapter and later as the first Supreme Archon, Kroeg helped turn a small Charleston organization into a national Fraternity with a clear vision. Many records describe him as the Founder most essential in both establishing and expanding Pi Kappa Phi. 

As the Fraternity’s visionary leader, Kroeg became the first brother to assume the helm of Supreme Archon, otherwise known as National President, from 1907-1909, and then in a second term from 1910-11.  

Outside the Fraternity, Kroeg remained active in his church and the Charleston community. He died in 1922 and is buried at Magnolia Cemetery, where brothers still visit to honor his role in the Fraternity’s beginnings.

Simon Fogarty, Jr., a resident of 90 Broad Street, hosted the early gatherings of Pi Kappa Phi, giving the fledgling brotherhood a place to meet and belong. He served as Alpha Chapter’s first treasurer and is credited with helping shape some of the Fraternity’s earliest symbols, including the design of a membership badge that featured a diamond shape with the letters ΠΚΦ, a star and a lamp. 

Later in life, he attended the inaugural Pi Kapp College, where undergraduate brothers lined up to have their diplomas signed by a living Founder; a moment that connected the emerging leaders of the 1950s to the very beginning in 1904. 

Fogarty died in 1966 as the last surviving Founder of Pi Kappa Phi and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, not far from the brothers with whom he began the Fraternity. 

Lawrence Harry Mixson ensured that the story of Pi Kappa Phi would not be lost to time. As secretary, he recorded the early minutes, helped draft the original Constitution and kept careful track of the Fraternity’s first decisions. Years later, his recollections, letters and writings offered future generations a glimpse into the early days in Charleston, making the first brothers not just names on paper, but real people with hopes, dreams and friendships that became a brotherhood.  

Mixson’s attention to detail preserved the memory of how “the new fraternity” came to be.  

After his undergraduate years, he followed Kroeg and Mosimann in Pi Kappa Phi’s National President role from 1911-13, becoming only the third brother to assume the position and helping guide the young Fraternity through its earliest years of expansion. 

Mixson died in 1962 and, like Kroeg and Fogarty, is buried at Magnolia Cemetery. 

Anthony Pelzer Wagener joined Pi Kappa Phi at its beginning and later became one of its key national leaders. He served as the first editor of the Fraternity magazine, helping create a platform that kept brothers informed and connected nationwide, and he wrote some of the earliest reflections on Pi Kappa Phi’s purpose and history.  

Serving as Pi Kappa Phi’s National President during the Great Depression, Wagener urged members to stay loyal and optimistic, famously borrowing the phrase Ad Astra per aspera — “through difficulties to the stars”— to describe the Fraternity’s path. His leadership helped Pi Kappa Phi survive a period that closed many other fraternities. 

Thoughtful and academically minded, Thomas Francis Mosimann embodied the serious student the early chapter hoped to attract. As a devoted founding member, his presence demonstrated that a fraternity experience could complement a student's education, rather than compete with it. 

Mosimann’s name appears alongside the Founders on the roster of Alpha Chapter’s charter members. His presence in the records reminds us that the Fraternity was built not just by a few well-remembered leaders, but also by their peers whose stories were less frequently told or written about. Together, they balanced coursework, campus life and the risk of starting a new fraternity in an era when many fraternities were already established.   

After Andrew A. Kroeg, Jr., served his first term as National President, Mosimann was the second brother to assume the role, serving from 1909-10.  

James Fogarty, brother of Founder Simon, played a quiet but meaningful role in the earliest days of Pi Kappa Phi. As one of the initial members of Alpha Chapter, he represents the many brothers whose names appear less often in printed histories and stories, but whose loyalty and participation helped the Fraternity endure and grow. 

His presence among the first seven shows that Pi Kappa Phi’s founding grew out of genuine friendships and bonds between brothers, both by blood and by choice, who knew and trusted one another. Through ordinary acts of chapter life, such as attending meetings, recruiting new men and living out the Fraternity’s ideals on campus, he and others like him helped build the foundation on which later generations would stand.  

After his years at the College of Charleston, Fogarty continued a life of service in the United States Marine Corps and is now buried in Arlington National Cemetery. 

Theodore Barnwell Kelly was the youngest of the original seven, and the one whose actions most clearly solidified the Fraternity’s future beyond Charleston.  

After helping to establish the Fraternity at the College of Charleston, he eventually moved to the West Coast. There, he saw an opportunity to extend his Pi Kappa Phi experience and the Fraternity’s reach. With Kroeg’s blessing and collaboration, he helped organize the Gamma Chapter at the University of California-Berkeley. As the only founding member affiliated with not one, but two chapters, Kelly became a living bridge between the Fraternity’s intimate beginnings and its future as a truly national organization.  

Kelly’s willingness to carry Pi Kappa Phi with him wherever he went foreshadowed the many times brothers would bring the Fraternity’s values into new campuses and communities. 

Theodore Barnwell Kelly, one of the loyal Nu Phis, helped establish Pi Kappa Phi in Charleston, and then, by a stroke of fate, carried it more than 2,500 miles away. When life took him to California, Kelly transferred to the University of California-Berkeley. There, he saw an opportunity: he loved being part of the brotherhood in South Carolina; why should he leave that behind? With Founder Kroeg’s blessing, he organized the Gamma Chapter there, extending Pi Kappa Phi across the country. 

He became the only founding member ever affiliated with a second chapter, symbolizing the leap from a small Southern fraternity to a national one. That moment, extending to California, was a turning point for Pi Kappa Phi, proving that the ideals born on a Charleston campus could take root wherever men chose to live them. 

For the 50th anniversary, Pi Kappa Phi again honored its roots by presenting the College with a clock atop Randolph Hall. Leaders considered gifting a sundial but chose a clock instead. A sundial marks only sunny hours; a clock keeps time through daylight and darkness, clear skies and storms. Similarly, Pi Kappa Phi has continued its work through both prosperous and difficult years. 

Brothers were urged to “keep step” with that clock and with the progress of their Fraternity. High above the Cistern Yard, its hands turn steadily, marking each new moment in the ever-evolving story of Pi Kappa Phi. 

For the 75th anniversary, Pi Kappa Phi chose a living symbol rather than brick or stone: a rose garden on the College of Charleston’s campus. Filled with red roses, the Fraternity’s official flower, the garden honors one of Pi Kappa Phi’s most beloved traditions: singing “The Rose of Pi Kappa Phi.” 

Over the years, brothers, alumni and friends have visited the garden to celebrate milestones, remember brothers who have entered the Chapter Eternal and reflect on their own Pi Kappa Phi experience. Like the song itself, the roses suggest that the friendships formed in college can continue to grow and deepen long after graduation, rooted in shared memories of this campus and this brotherhood. 

To mark the centennial, Pi Kappa Phi again turned to its birthplace, commissioning a bell tower on the College of Charleston’s grounds. The bell, inscribed in honor of the “unbroken stream of men” who had joined since 1904, recognizes not just a single moment, but a century of men who chose this brotherhood. 

Rising above the surrounding buildings and trees, each time the bell rings, it echoes more than 100 years of Pi Kappa Phi history and points toward the next generation of men who will add their names to that “unbroken stream.” 

More than half a century after a hand was traced on a chalkboard in Charleston, another brother would help guide Pi Kappa Phi into a new era. Durward W. Owen, Xi (Roanoke), joined the Fraternity in 1950 and, in 1959, accepted what he thought would be a two-year role as executive secretary. Instead, he spent 35 years at the helm, leading Pi Kappa Phi through decades of growth, change and challenge. 

When Owen began his tenure, Pi Kappa Phi had 46 active chapters. By the time he retired in 1994, the Fraternity had grown to 141 chapters and 11 associate chapters. His leadership helped create new programs and structures, including the Council of Archons, Pi Kappa Phi Properties, an internship program and the national service project known as PUSH (now The Ability Experience), that shaped the undergraduate experience and deepened Pi Kappa Phi’s commitment to service. 

At the 44th Supreme Chapter in Atlanta, brothers recognized Owen’s impact by honoring him with the title of “The Fourth Founder.” Having personally known Founders Mixson and Fogarty, he became a living link between the men who created Pi Kappa Phi and the thousands of students and alumni who carried it into the 21st century. His story shows how one brother’s lifelong commitment can help a fraternity stay true to its roots while evolving into something new. 

On December 10, 1904, seven loyal Nu Phis gathered at 90 Broad Street in Charleston, South Carolina. There, they chose a new name, Pi Kappa Phi, and began the work of building a fraternity rooted in friendship, loyalty and character. Over the next year, they wrote a constitution, held regular meetings, recruited new members and established Pi Kappa Phi’s place at the College of Charleston. On December 10, 1905, the anniversary of that first meeting, L. Harry Mixson’s mother prepared a special meal to mark the Fraternity’s first successful year. That simple dinner became Pi Kappa Phi’s earliest Founders’ Day celebration. 

In the decades that followed, Founders’ Day grew into a formal tradition. By the 1920s and 1930s, alumni chapters hosted dinners, dances and large gatherings, including New York’s combined Founders’ Day and Christmas party and an Atlanta celebration broadcast over WSB radio. These events reminded brothers that Pi Kappa Phi had grown far beyond the streets around 90 Broad. 

Over time, Founders’ Day also became a day of service for many chapters and alumni groups. On December 10, 1995, for example, Durward Owen joined fellow alumni to build a wheelchair ramp for a 14-year-old boy, creating a simple but life-changing path from his home to the street. After decades of black-tie banquets and grand celebrations, Owen would later describe that ramp project as the best Founders’ Day he had ever experienced. 

Today, undergraduate chapters and alumni organizations observe Founders’ Day in many different ways, including alumni events, chapter gatherings, service projects, fundraising efforts and personal moments of reflection. Whatever form it takes, each celebration returns to the same idea: honoring the decision made by a small group of students in 1904 and renewing the commitment to live Pi Kappa Phi’s values in the present. 

121 years after seven loyal Nu Phis chose to form a new fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi is a national brotherhood that spans campuses nationwide. Shared values unite brothers: common loyalty, personal responsibility, achievement, accountability, campus involvement, responsible citizenship and lifelong commitment, values that continue to shape how they learn, lead and serve. 

Founders’ Day invites every brother to look to the past and future at the same time. Looking back, we remember the hand on the chalkboard, the early meetings on Wentworth Street and 90 Broad Street and the decisions that carried Pi Kappa Phi from Charleston to California and beyond. Looking forward, we recognize that the Fraternity’s future will be written by the choices brothers make today: how they treat one another, how they show up on their campuses and how they serve their communities. 

The next 121 years will be defined by brothers who, like the seven loyal Nu Phis, carry an uncommon brotherhood in their everyday lives.