Written by Mattie Powers // Pulled from 1997-1998 Petit Jean yearbook
A former women’s social club, Tri Sigma Delta, is making its comeback to Harding this semester with new members, sponsors and future plans. This women’s club originally began in 1972 but is being revived by students to create the 14th women’s social club.
Sophomore Emma Curry initiated the idea to reestablish the club. Curry is an athlete on Harding’s softball team, and she sent out the idea to form a club in the team group chat while she was walking to chapel one day. Curry and sophomore Brooke Johnson looked up past women’s social clubs at Harding, and Tri Sigma Delta appealed the most to them.
“This club is mainly athletes,” Curry said. “We have friends outside of our sport, but I feel like this will help us connect with other sports or just even like anyone, like with other clubs, just people we wouldn’t normally talk to on a normal basis.”
Tri Sigma Delta was an active club at Harding from 1972 to 1993 but changed their name to Kappa Gamma Epsilon in 1994. Kappa Gamma Epsilon lasted from 1994 to 2008, and at that point, the club was disbanded.
Johnson expressed the mindset they have as sophomores taking on this task.
“It’s good that we have two more years,” Johnson said. “We can start it now and then we can kind of build a foundation, and leave that to the other people.”
Another quest in creating a new club was finding sponsors for it. Johnson found many Tri Sigma Delta alumni online and reached out to see if any of them were interested in being a sponsor for the club. One person they found was Debra Nesbitt, the residence life coordinator for Keller Hall and now a sponsor for the club.
“Well, I know it’s going to be super great because I know all these girls that I’m going to be a sponsor with really well,” Nesbitt said. “And so, I know that part of it is going to be great. We’re all going to have great relationships that I think work well together.”
