Featured Exhibit

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 they had been betrayed by their own members.  

Unwilling to surrender, the seven loyal Nu Phis regrouped. They met in classrooms and on Wentworth Street, keeping coded minutes and announcing meetings with a chalked hand on the board, 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, this time proclaiming 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 opened his home at 90 Broad Street as the first gathering place and L. 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 possessed a distinct personality and set of talents. Still, despite their differences, they were united by 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, shaping 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. — Founder, The Visionary Organizer 

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. 

Outside the Fraternity, Kroeg was 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 beginning. 

Simon Fogarty, Jr. — Founder, The Host and Craftsman 

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. 

L. Harry Mixson — Founder, The Recorder and Storyteller 

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

Anthony Pelzer Wagener — Founding Member, The Historian and Architect 

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. 

 As 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. 

Thomas Francis Mosimann — Founding Member, The Model Scholar 

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, rather than compete with, a student’s education. 

Mosimann’s name appears alongside the Founders on the roster of Alpha Chapter’s charter members. Mosimann’s presence in the record is a reminder 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.  

James Fogarty — Founding Member, The Steadfast Brother 

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 may appear less often in printed histories and stories, but whose loyalty and participation were essential to the Fraternity’s survival and growth.  

James’s presence among the first seven underscores a central truth of Pi Kappa Phi’s founding: it was born out of genuine friendships and bonds; brothers, some by blood and others by choice, who knew and trusted one another.  

Theodore Barnwell Kelly — Founding Member, The Bridge to the Future 

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 initiated into not one, but two chapters, Kelly became a living bridge between the Fraternity’s intimate beginnings and its future as a truly national organization.  

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 initiated into 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.  

Even as Pi Kappa Phi spread across the country, it continued to return to its roots when marking major milestones, commemorating those moments with gifts to its birthplace at the College of Charleston.  

To commemorate the Fraternity’s 25th anniversary, Pi Kappa Phi dedicated a memorial gate in the high wall along College Street on the west side of campus. Massive brick pillars, joined by a graceful arch, frame wrought-iron gates bearing the Fraternity’s Greek letters. Bronze tablets on either side record both the founding of Pi Kappa Phi in 1904 and the dedication of the gate in 1929. For generations of students, passing through that gate has been a daily reminder that a national brotherhood began, right there on their campus.  

For the 50th anniversary, the Fraternity presented the College with a clock atop Randolph Hall. Leaders chose a clock rather than the alternative idea, a sundial, because, as the National President at the time noted, a clock marks every hour; sunlight and storm, day and night, just as Pi Kappa Phi has continued its work through both prosperous and difficult times. Brothers were urged to “keep step” with that clock, and with the progress of their Fraternity.  

A rose garden planted for the 75th anniversary filled a corner of the campus with red roses, the Fraternity’s official flower, and a reminder of Pi Kappa Phi’s beloved song, “The Rose of Pi Kappa Phi.”  

To mark the centennial, a bell tower rose above the College’s grounds, its bell inscribed in honor of the “unbroken stream of men” who had joined since 1904. Each memorial is a tangible reminder of Pi Kappa Phi, in the very place where it began. 

When Durward W. Owen, Xi (Roanoke), joined Pi Kappa Phi in 1950, no one could have predicted how profound his impact would be on the Fraternity’s future. In 1959, with his wife Connie and their growing family, he accepted a two-year appointment to the role of executive secretary, which later became executive director, and what we now call chief executive officer. He sold his businesses, moved to Sumter, South Carolina, where the office was located at the time, and stepped into a role that would last 35 years. 

When Owen took the helm, Pi Kappa Phi had 52 undergraduate chapters and no associate chapters. That same year, he had to close six chapters, leaving 46 on the roster. Rather than retreat, he focused on strengthening existing chapters and expanding to new campuses, particularly by investing in field staff to support undergraduates, and cultivating those staff members into professionals through his mentorship and passion for teaching others. 

By the time he retired in 1994, Pi Kappa Phi had grown to 141 chapters and 11 associate chapters, a 171 percent increase, along with a host of initiatives that still shape the Fraternity: the Council of Archons, an internship program, Pi Kappa Phi Properties, the national service project known as PUSH (now The Ability Experience), the Nu Phi Society and more.  

Many of the programs he championed continue to shape the Pi Kappa Phi experience today, from leadership opportunities for undergraduates to hands-on service with people with disabilities. 

Beyond Pi Kappa Phi, Owen helped pull the Fraternity into the center of the interfraternal world. He was active in the Fraternity Communications Association, the Association of Fraternity Advisors and the Fraternity Executives Association and he was a founder of FIPG, Inc., an interfraternal risk-management group that helped fraternities secure crucial liability insurance and protect undergraduate members.  

In 1994, at the 44th Supreme Chapter in Atlanta, Pi Kappa Phi honored his decades of unmatched leadership and vision by naming him the “Fourth Founder.” Owen himself never truly claimed the title, consistently giving all credit to the seven founding brothers in Charleston whose ideas made his work possible. Yet in many ways, his lifetime of servant leadership extended their vision into a new era, connecting the Founders’ generation to the brothers who wear the letters today.  

For more than a century, December 10 has been a day for Pi Kappa Phi brothers to reflect with gratitude and look ahead with purpose. Even in difficult times, Founders’ Day has drawn brothers together.  

During the Great Depression, when many students struggled to afford dues and even college tuition, Pi Kappa Phi’s Founders’ Day observances remained strong. New York alumni reported their largest Founders’ Day event ever, held alongside their annual Christmas party. In Atlanta, more than 100 brothers gathered for a Founders’ Day celebration that was broadcast over WSB, one of the leading radio stations in the Southeast at the time.  

Years later, Executive Director Durward Owen reflected in an essay titled, “My Best Founders’ Day Ever,” about how meaningful it was to celebrate the occasion not in a grand ballroom as he’d done many times before, but in a simple setting, helping improve the life of a person with a disability alongside his brothers. For Owen, the “best” Founders’ Day was a day when Pi Kapps came together to live their values, not just talk about them, and the most memorable moments might not be the ones that you’d expect. 

Today, Founders’ Day celebrations may look different from place to place; from banquets in campus ballrooms, alumni luncheons and dinners or even chapter gatherings in houses or backyards, but the heart of the day remains the same. 

Wherever brothers gather on December 10, they join a long line of Pi Kapps who pause each year to honor the past, recommit to the present and imagine what the next chapter can be. 

Today, Pi Kappa Phi is a national fraternity with chapters and alumni across the country, but its purpose remains consistent with the goals of the Founders in 1904: to create an uncommon brotherhood of leaders who strive for personal excellence, serve others and make a positive impact on their campuses and communities. 

On this 121st anniversary, we honor the seven men in Charleston who chose to create something, even when their first plan failed, and the unbroken stream of men who have carried that vision forward. Each generation has faced its own challenges and opportunities, from world wars and economic crises to rapid growth and new expectations for fraternity life. Still, these unique generations of men are united by their commitment to common loyalty, personal responsibility, achievement accountability, campus involvement, responsible citizenship and lifelong commitment.  

The next chapter of Pi Kappa Phi’s story will be written by the men who wear these letters today. It will be shaped in chapter meetings and philanthropy events, on Friendship visits and in late-night conversations among brothers. As you explore this exhibit, you are part of that story, one more link in a brotherhood that calls men to be exceptional leaders who put service before self. From a hand traced in chalk to the thousands of men whose initiation cards fill the vault at our national headquarters, one truth is evident: 121 years in, we are still building the Fraternity our Founders imagined, and the work is far from over.