The brothers of Kappa Alpha Psi grooved, stepped and stomped their way toward a $1,500 check at the Homecoming Greek Step Show competition Oct. 28 at UCA’s Farris Center, and gubernatorial candidate Chris Jones made a surprise appearance.
The fraternity performed 1977-themed skits and dances to honor its original members, complete with matching afros, lettered sweater vests and bell-bottom khakis.
“We’re coming up on our 45th-year anniversary, and we kind of just wanted to pay a little tribute to our chartermen as well as our older brothers in the chapter,” senior Ryan Jones said.
The brothers had no shortage of prop usage, as they danced with canes and threw rose petals.
After their performance, emcee Jay Dukes introduced gubernatorial candidate Chris Jones.
“He’s a Black man,” Dukes said. “He paid for his own ticket. He didn’t even get a free ticket. He came to support what y’all have going on.”
Kappa Alpha Psi celebrates winning the first place trophy and $1,500 prize for the brothers' 1977-themed stepping performance.
Five National Pan-Hellenic Council member organizations, three fraternities and two sororities competed for cash prizes and trophies, each having themed stepping performances that involved percussive mixes of hand claps, footsteps and chants.
The Delta Sigma Theta sisters also put on a second-place performance where sisters came down with “red fever,” a reference to the sorority’s crimson color.
A sister in red scrubs led the patients through stepping routines to cure them, and the sorority incorporated flashing red lights as defibrillators into its routine.
Senior Diamond Brown, who played a patient in the performance, said she felt great after winning $1,000 with her sisters.
“I think my sorority put on a great performance. I think we worked very hard, and all the other sororities or fraternities did well as well,” Brown said.
She said research and practice made up a lot of the routine’s preparation.
“We brainstormed a lot of steps. We watched YouTube videos to get some ideas and we just kind of went with the flow,” Brown said.
In matching jumpsuits, the Phi Beta Sigma brothers secured third place and a $500 prize with an ex-convict-themed routine.
Ryan Jones said that he was proud to win first place with his fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi and that the chapter was going to celebrate.
“Just to know we’ve been putting in so much work since August just to come out on top, it just feels amazing,” Jones said. “We’re gonna go back and have a good time.”
Jones said the brothers would put their prize money to good use.
“We plan to take [the $1,500] and put it into the chapter as well as find out different ways we could use it and put it back into our community,” Jones said.
The Office of Diversity and Community, with the help of the NPHC and Students for the Propagation of Black Culture, put the Friday night event on.
Angela Jackson, director of the Office of Diversity and Community, said about 1,700 guests attended, and that each NPHC organization chose a judge.
The judges compared the groups’ introductions, themes, attire, choreography and synchronization, vocal clarity, complexity and enthusiasm, as well as their overall performances and the crowd’s reaction.