Due to sanctions received during the 2005-2006 school year, the Beta Beta Chapter of ATO is no longer allowed to hold the Viking Party or any other party incorporating such aspects of Vike as fur costumes, pine-covered walls, or a marshmallow pit. Debate ensued during spring, summer, and early fall of 2006 over what kind of event should be held to replace Vike, a daunting challenge, indeed. The list of suggested replacement events included: a Beta Beta Help Week, a major philanthropic event such as a Renaissance Festival, or parties with themes such as pirates or Woodstock. However, taking cue from several other chapters that no longer hold, or have never held, a Viking Party, the Beta Beta Chapter finally adopted the Shipwreck Party as Vike’s replacement. This party has been a major annual event at several other chapters since at least the 1950’s, thus actually predating Viking.
Although this party will no longer take place among this chapter, the Viking Party began here at BSC and quickly became not only the largest and most popular annual party held by any single organization on this campus but also became the major annual party held by almost all other ATO chapters across the nation. It was created by the Beta Beta Chapter at BSC in 1963 and was held every fall for the next forty-two years. It is still a major event at other campuses, and the mark it has left on our chapter and on the ATO national fraternity is permanent. Thus, it is well worth noting the traditions and preparations that went into creating this event each year before outlining the preparations for Shipwreck.
The pledge class of 2002-2003 constructed the wooden cutout of a Viking that has since been prominently placed at each Viking party. This Viking is still displayed during major events such as Shipwreck and Men’s Bid Day. This pledge class was also the first pledge class to prepare for Vike to be held in the new house on the newly constructed Frat Row near Striplin Fitness Center. They drilled holes in large panels of plywood and had large metal screws permanently placed along the tops of the walls in the basement of the ATO house. Each year, these panels can be hung from these screws by sliding the holes over the screws, thus covering all of the cinderblock walls with plywood. Chicken wire is then stapled to the plywood until all areas are covered with the loosely-hanged wire.
These preparations usually began on the Sunday prior to Vike, which has been a two-night party taking place on Friday and Saturday. A band is always hired for Saturday night and usually for Friday as well. New members and active members alike work together nonstop from the Sunday prior until the moment of Friday night’s party. Any free time outside of class or doing schoolwork is allotted for preparing for the party. The same time commitment is vital for Shipwreck.
One or two nights are dedicated to collecting fresh pine branches from nearby pine trees. These branches were slid through the chicken wire on the walls until, slowly but surely, all of the walls were covered with thick green pine straw and not a single speck of the actual walls or plywood could be seen. The floor of the basement is covered with several inches of woodchips with the exception of inside the bathrooms, behind the bar, and the area of floor space taken up by the stages on which the band must play.
Any area of walls not covered with pine, was covered with black plastic sheeting or black trash bags to minimize the conspicuousness of such areas. Sandbags were lined along the doorways and other such places to divide between areas covered and not covered with woodchips. Sandbags could also be piled upon one another in an ovular shape, lined with a tarp, and then filled with warm water and marshmallows in order to create a marshmallow pit. During some years, a kiddy pool was purchased and filled as an alternative to sandbags. Sandbags forming the walls and underside of the pit are preferable.
Thin trunks of saplings and other such logs were used to construct a wooden covering for the bar itself to create the illusion that the bar was wooden and archaic, and more logs were used to create archways around the doors to the basement. Other long, thin logs could be sharpened and stuck in the ground along the back patio, filling the back yard with wooden pikes or rough wooden fences. However, these had to be tall enough so as to avoid the possibility of people stumbling and falling atop the sharpened ends.
On the Thursday prior to the party, Vike Dinner would he held. All ATO’s would gather at the ATO house and walk across campus and to the cafeteria together. At the cafeteria, everyone would purchase dinner, choosing some meal that would normally be eaten with utensils. After a brief call-and-response between the President and the other members, the chapter would begin eating, but they could not eat with utensils or even their hands. Typically, all members stop shaving about a month before Vike Week in order to begin looking the part of a Viking. Also, the increased amount of facial hair creates hands-free eating at Vike Dinner to be all the more interesting and entertaining. Along with flyers handed out once or twice the week prior to Vike Week and also handed out during each night of Vike Week, Vike Dinner always got the Viking Party a good deal of campus publicity.
Friday night’s party was always an open party during which people came in normal social attire. Usually, a band would be hired, but this party was mostly a prologue to the true Vike party which would take place Saturday night. It helped to get people further into the sprit of Vike and also helped to spread the word for people to come on Saturday night.
Saturday night’s party was closed to ATO brothers and alumni, possibly a few very close friends, and dates who were invited. The dates would gather together in a neighboring basement, either Kappa Alpha or Sigma Nu usually, and begin learning Vike songs and chants while the ATO’s made final preparations and learned their own songs and chants in the ATO basement. Anyone attending the party could be dressed only in fur—real or fake. When the time finally came, the both groups would meet halfway between houses and sing songs and chant chants back and forth until joining together in the ATO basement. Once all were inside the basement, the dates sang the last song, “The Twelve Days of Vike,” adapted from “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” but with each day referring back to a specific person in the fraternity or some other event specific to that year. Then, one of the most unique parties in the history of BSC would truly begin. The clean-up for Vike took at least all of the following Sunday, but random pieces of fur could be spotted anywhere across campus for at least a week after the party. New members traditionally fill a glass bottle with woodchips during the clean-up as a souvenir from their first Vike Party.
While the purpose of the Viking party was to transform the basement into a Viking feast hall, the purpose of the Shipwreck party is to transform the basement into a desert island or tropical paradise. It is not a pirate party. The details of Shipwreck were inspired by other chapters’ preparations for their own Shipwreck party along with incorporating their own ideas and traditions into their own version of Shipwreck.
As in preparation for Vike, the walls of the basement of the ATO house were completely covered with black plastic sheeting or black trash bags. However, beneath the black plastic, white net Christmas lights were hung along the walls from the metal screws that run along the top of the walls in the basement. The white bulbs were then poked through the black plastic to create the effect of a black night sky filled with white stars. Although time and resources did not allow, it was suggested that landscapes be somehow drawn or constructed along the lower portions of the walls such as palm trees and sand dunes or ocean waves, etc.
The original plan included covering the floor of the basement with sand. However, sand is much more expensive than wood chips which were always used to cover the floor for Vike. Also, it would take much more sand to cover the same area that wood chips had once covered, the entire floor of the basement other than behind the bar, inside the bathrooms, and the area of floor taken up by the stages on which a hired band plays. Sand is also much more difficult to clean up and would require tarps to be placed on the floor beneath the sand. It would be much more difficult to walk through, less stable, would get kicked up into people’s eyes and refreshments during the party. Thus, wood chips were adopted for use during Shipwreck. Brothers that remembered Vike reminisced that the wood chips gave off an aroma that allowed for a bit of Vike to live on through Shipwreck.
Instead of covering the bar with pine logs, a tiki bar was constructed out of freshly-cut bamboo logs. A bamboo wall was made to cover the entire front of the bar along with a swinging door of bamboo across the entrance to get to the area behind the bar. A roof of bamboo and bamboo leaves was constructed over that area and a window was cut into the wall through which to serve refreshments from the bar. Leftover bamboo was cut into cups and used at the Shipwreck party and kept as souvenirs as replacements for the glass bottles once kept as Vike souvenirs by new members.
However, most of the leftover bamboo was used as added decorations stuck in corners of the basement as well as around the large pool of hot water on the back patio. This pool was made from sandbags in the same method of the marshmallow pits from Vike and located in the same area. Hoses were connected to the kitchen sink on the main floor of the ATO house. Hot water ran through these hoses and out into bamboo poles that hung out of windows on the main floor and above the entryways into the basement. The hot water ran out of the hoses and out of holes cut in the bamboo poles to create warm waterfalls through which guests must walk to get to the party. The pool was positioned so that one of these waterfalls fell into it as well.
While the main focus of effort for Vike had been in covering the walls with pine branches, the main focus of effort for Shipwreck was in the construction of the wooden ship at the back entrance of the basement. An independent theatre tech major named Alex McConnell helped design and lead construction for this ship, which was built to look like the back half of a ship, as though a full ship wrecked into the back of the ATO house. Holes are cut in each side of the ship so guests may actually enter the ship and walk through it in order to get to one of the entrances to the basement.
Since the ship is mostly intact and has been saved for posterity, future Shipwreck parties will require less time and money for which to prepare. However, the ship can be added to, the pool can be expanded, and many more details can be added such as tiki huts, island plant life, other ship parts, and other decorations made from bamboo. All in all, the first annual Shipwreck party was a great success, but it can always be improved. In many ways, the legacy of Vike lives on through Shipwreck, held during the first weekend of November, the same time of year that Beta Beta always held Vike.
A hot tub has replaced the marshmallow pit and a starry sky has replaced pine walls. The wood chips persist and the bar is made of bamboo rather than pine logs. The chants and cheers learned by new members during Vike persist, as do the Thursday and Friday night meetings. Vike Dinner is now Shipwreck Dinner, which still helps brothers get into the spirit of the party. Flyers still go out the week prior and every single night of Shipwreck Week.
For the first Shipwreck party, brothers felt that having a two-night party might be expecting too much for Shipwreck’s BSC debut, and letting people see the basement on Friday might spoil the surprise and excitement for Saturday. For this reason, Shipwreck was limited to its full week of nonstop preparation and Saturday night’s closed party. However, due to stricter rules of the college, closed parties are mostly open to everyone on campus anyway. Instead of fur, people are expected to wear the torn and stained and makeshift clothing of castaways or island natives: Castaway meets Lost meets Gilligan’s Island.
Dates still show up early to gather in a basement next door, and now as we open the party, they sing “The Twelve Days of Shipwreck.” And the fun is still just as wild and crazy as ever. Although we have followed our sanctions in every way mandated by both the school and the national fraternity, and although we have learned from and progressed beyond certain problematic traditions of prior decades, the unique nature of Vike still lives on.
The following photos all come from “Photos of the Chapter in Action,” 2006.
Beta-Beta: The History 