On a sunny autumn afternoon in early September of 1975, a young man approached me on the paths at the campus of Indiana University Southeast. In his hand he held a small ringed notepad, the type that stenographers use. On the notepad were a list of names and phone numbers of others he had talked with earlier in the day. We knew each other in the past, for we had attended highschool together four years in the past.
The purpose of the notepad was to enlist individuals who were interested in starting a social club or fraternity. For as you see the social life on the IUS campus was very boring. IUS had just moved from a location in Jeffersonville to its new campus in New Albany two years prior. The buildings were on a beautiful 180 acre site, but there were no places where the students could congregate and socialize.
Never would I have dreamed that on this day our lives would be forever changed and intertwined. My name is Erich Schmitt, and the young man that I speak of is Doug Meador. This and similar meetings with others was the simple beginning of what we now know as the Omicron Sigma Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon at Indiana University Southeast.
-Erich Schmitt, 1975