EDITOR’S NOTE: In the spirit of transparency, Abbey Duke is a staff writer for The Crimson. Without her particular position and perspective in Zeta Tau Alpha, this story would not have been able to run.
Mr. Samford is a long-lasting philanthropic tradition that functions as Zeta Tau Alpha’s (ZTA) spring fundraiser. It started out small in Harry’s Coffeehouse but as the fundraiser has grown, so has the event itself in both seriousness and venue.
Mr. Samford has previously been a pageant for the Greek-affiliated men of Samford, and ZTA works every year to raise money for their philanthropy — breast cancer awareness, education and research.
The pageant includes a group dance, lip sync, talent and then a question-and-answer portion. All the different aspects allow the men to show their personalities and seriousness, while also putting on a fun show.
The event this year will take place on March 22 in the Wright Center and will include many fun acts.
In the past, the participants have all come from Greek life – a fraternity will submit their own representative, and other sororities will elect a man of their choice to represent them. However, this year, non-Greek groups get the chance to participate, such as the Samford Outdoor Adventure Club (SOAC).
Abbey Duke, Zeta Tau Alpha’s vice president of philanthropy and service, discussed how she is working to involve more people on campus.
“We deem Mr. Samford as a place that all parts of campus want to go to: faculty and staff want to come, all of our friends want to come, Greek life or not. But how hard is it to come when no one is represented from who is choosing not to be a part of Greek life,” said Duke.
Inspired by a leadership conference she attended at the beginning of the semester, she decided that it was time that Samford included other organizations as well.
SOAC and the Student Government Association (SGA) were both contacted about having representatives in the competition. Due to unknown conflicts, only SOAC has a participant in this year’s competition.
“It was a really cool thing when we were asked to do it. I think it’s actually a really interesting way of expanding the pageant,” said Stephen Lilly president of SOAC.
SOAC’s representative will be Calvin Van Heest. His performance will be the first non-Greek performance, so he will have the chance to pave the way for future independent organization representatives.
“Opening it up to other groups to participate, I think is a really smart way of getting more people around campus engaged in the event,” said Lilly.
Lilly’s opinion was shared by Duke as well as she talked about how she loved working on the pageant because she saw God in all things.
“I see the Lord through everything, which has been super awesome. And what a great opportunity to bring people together on campus and have fun and goof around but also know that it’s for something so much greater,” said Duke.
Mr. Samford is now open to groups and organizations across campus. It is the hope of ZTA that this will spread awareness around the event and breast cancer awareness in general.
Will this event be livestreamed?