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.
