GROUPS CAMP OUT FOR SCHOLARSHIP

The hazing death of Michael Davis gave a black eye to Southeast Missouri State University fraternities.

Almost a year after Davis' death, members of two fraternities say they feel some luster is being restored to the tarnished image of Greek life at the school.

They say Davis' death hasn't been forgotten, either by the public or the fraternities.

Members of the Phi Beta Sigma and Phi Delta Theta fraternities camped overnight Friday to raise money for the Michael Davis Scholarship Fund.

They spent the night in two tents and a tepee set up outside the school's Student Recreation Center. Fraternity members said they expect to raise at least $400 in donations for the journalism scholarship.

The school established the scholarship last year in memory of Davis, who died last February from beatings he sustained in the hazing rituals of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. That fraternity has since been banned from the campus.

About 12 members of Phi Beta Sigma, a black fraternity, and about eight members of Phi Delta Theta, a traditionally white fraternity, were planning to participate in the 20-hour camp-out.

The camp-out began at 4 p.m. Friday and is scheduled to end at noon today.

About 10 students stood outside, trying their best to ignore the fog and shivering rain late Friday afternoon. For them, it was more than a fund-raiser, it was a show of public unity.

The students feel that hazing has been largely banished at Southeast.

"We are not in jail," Ed Pearson said. "We are here." Pearson is president of the Phi Beta Sigma chapter at Southeast.

The public often thinks of Greeks as party people, he said. They don't realize Greek chapters do many community service projects.

Pearson and others want to talk about the future of Greek life at Southeast, not the past.

"We don't want to say this is an anti-hazing rally," Phi Beta Sigma member Mark Cruse said. "It is a unity rally."

Cruse said Davis' death was a tragedy.

"That was a bad thing that happened in the Greek system and now we are showing that something good can happen in the Greek system," he said.

Nathan Thomas of Phi Delta Theta said Southeast's black and white Greek organizations often didn't work together.

There are 10 traditionally white fraternities and two black fraternities at Southeast.

"There have been conflicts between the two systems," he said. But that is changing. Davis' death has helped bring the organizations together.

But the entire Greek community at Southeast is still struggling to restore its image.

Thomas said Davis' death and the resulting nationwide publicity has made some students reluctant to join Greek organizations.

Phi Beta Sigma member Mark Stepney agreed that some people still view Southeast's fraternities in a bad light.

"It is still around, but it is not as big as it used to be," he said.