Kappa Kappa Gamma, Lambda Chi Alpha win GAMMA Jam

The GAMMA Jam finals took place Friday in Greektown.

By Travis Cornejo

Published Sept. 22, 2009

The final competition for the Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol Jam took place Friday night on an open stage in Greektown, crowning the first-place sorority and fraternity.

Kappa Kappa Gamma won first place in the sorority category. The women of Kappa Alpha Theta took second. Alpha Phi came in third with its Michael Jackson tribute performance.

The men of Lambda Chi Alpha took top honors in the fraternity category. Tau Kappa Epsilon came in second.

Paige Flores of Chi Omega was ranked as the top in-between act by the judges. Following in second was the rapping trio from Lambda Chi Alpha. The act from Phi Mu came in third.

Other finalists from the night include Alpha Delta Phi, Chi Omega and Kappa Delta. Phi Kappa Theta and Sigma Chi qualified for finals, but did not attend.

"Some of their dancers got hurt," GAMMA Tri-Director Megan Hall said.

The night began with a performance by the GAMMA Steering Committee. Its version of The Evolution of Dance, which included Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" and the theme song to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” had the crowd laughing.

Alpha Delta Pi was the first sorority to take the stage. It had to restart its performance after an error occurred with the audio.

Freshman Emily Giffin was one of the many women who performed that night. She said she enjoyed performing in GAMMA Jam and had a lot of fun doing so.

"I was pretty nervous," Giffin said. "The lights were not helping."

The first fraternity to perform was Lambda Chi Alpha. It performed to a medley of Kanye West songs. The brothers included a re-enactment of the Sept. 13 incident between West and Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards.

GAMMA Tri-Directors Hall, Sam Karson and Brad Minkow addressed the crowd between acts. They said their goal is to expand awareness of GAMMA.

"You guys have really made that vision a reality tonight," Karson said.

Minkow expressed the tri-directors' pride for all of the night's participants and thanked the Missouri Students Association Tech Crew for helping with the event.

Freshman Katie Stock attended the night's event. She came out to support her house in the finals competition.

Alpha Delta Pi gave her favorite performance of the night because of its uniform look, she said.

Various songs were played as the stage was reset for each act. Toward the end of the night, Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" had the crowd dancing along.

Kappa Kappa Gamma was the last performance of the night. Dressed in matching camouflage outfits, the women's performance included songs, such as, "Born in the USA," "Holding Out for a Hero" and "War," along with others.

One of the judges, Tim Waid, said Kappa Kappa Gamma won because of the genre of music it chose.

"I think they had a more diverse music selection," Waid said.

Waid said he was amazed at how much effort was put in all the night’s performances.