By Charlie Ball, Miami ‘82
The upcoming 64th National Convention, postponed from the event planned for last summer in Fort Worth, Texas will be unusual, but it’s far from the first time Phi Kappa Tau has cancelled or postponed a convention. In fact, it’s the tenth time we’ve done it.
A 1932 National Convention planned for Los Angeles was cancelled because of the Great Depression. The National Council, meeting at the newly-constructed Central Office in Oxford, Ohio, called the Convention to order and immediately adjourned it for lack of quorum. Another National Convention was not held until 1934 when the Convention met at Purdue University. The National Council met as the Convention in 1935, with the country still in the throes of the Great Depression.
A new constitution adopted at the 1936 National Convention at Penn State University changed the convention schedule from an annual event to every other year. After holding conventions in 1938 and 1940, the 1942, 1944 and 1946 conventions were cancelled because of World War II.
The 1938 National Convention
The two-year convention cycle resumed with the 1947 Victory Convention and continued through 1953 when the 1955 convention was postponed for one year to allow us to celebrate the Fraternity’s Golden Jubilee in 1956. Conventions remained on schedule until the 1974 National Convention was postponed for a year because of a national fuel shortage and the Fraternity’s general financial distress. This postponement also put us on track to hold the 75th anniversary Diamond Jubilee Convention in 1981.
As recently as 1999, the scheduled 2001 National Convention was postponed until 2002 in order to get the Fraternity on track to celebrate the Centennial in 2006. A side benefit to postponing last summer’s convention will also put us on schedule to celebrate a Quasquicentennial or 125th anniversary in 2031.
COVID-19 is one in a series of world events that have altered Phi Kappa Tau’s Convention planning and it will probably not be the last. For more than 115 years, the Fraternity has weathered many storms and will weather many more.
Returning to Miami University for a National Convention will also be unusual. It will be the first time we’ve held a regular National Convention at our founding site, other than the Anniversary conventions held there in 1931, 1956, 1981 and 2006.
Since our first “National Convention” in 1911, Phi Kappa Tau has met in 15 different states, the District of Columbia and in Ontario, Canada.
Of our first 11 conventions, all but two were in Ohio but none were held at Miami University. The 2018 convention in Cleveland was only the second ever held in Ohio somewhere other than a college campus. The other was the 1987 Convention held at the King’s Island amusement park outside Cincinnati.
Ohio does hold the record with 14 national conventions, though the majority of them were in the first 25 years of the fraternity’s history.
Indiana is the second-place record holder with eight conventions being held between 1920 and 1947 in the Hoosier State.
Next comes Missouri which has hosted five conventions (1925, 1949, 1970, 1975, and 2004), despite our having only chartered two chapters in that state.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky started hosting conventions in the Phrenocon days, with the 1915 convention at Centre College, two in Lexington in the 1920s and the 2008 convention in Louisville.
Pennsylvania, Colorado, California and Florida have hosted three conventions each and Arizona, Louisiana, Tennessee. Michigan and Illinois have each hosted two, along with the District of Columbia.
Mississippi is the only state that has hosted a single convention (1983 at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park Campus). Texas would have been added to that list as the 2020 Fort Worth convention would have been our first in the Lone Star State. Our only convention held outside of the United States was at the Bigwin Inn in Lake of Bays, Ontario, Canada in 1927.
Some will be surprised to learn that until this year, the most popular single location for conventions has been the conjoined towns of French Lick and West Baden in southern Indiana. Between 1926 and 1968, five conventions were held at the grand old French Lick and West Baden Springs Hotels. Today, the hotels have been fully restored and operate together as a single resort. Miami University will now be tied with French Lick/West Baden as the second location to have hosted five conventions.
Washington D.C. in 2014
On a few occasions other than at college campuses, we have returned to the same facility more than once. Already mentioned was the West Baden Springs Hotel where the 1926 and 1928 conventions were held and the French Lick Springs Hotel that hosted the convention three times in 1940, 1953 and 1968. Phi Tau has convened twice at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina in 1930 and 1962. In 1923 and again in 1929, Lexington Kentucky’s Phoenix Hotel (now demolished) was the host site.
As for college campuses, the record holders are Miami with the four anniversary conventions plus this year’s event, Ohio University where our first three conventions were held in 1911, 1912, and 1914 and Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio which hosted two conventions in January and September of 1919.