Photo provided by Joe Allen Mattingly

The new Sigma Pi house is located at 950 N. HWY 121. Sigma Pi alum raised $100,000 to purchase the house.

Murray State’s Sigma Pi fraternity bought a new house for their chapter.

After being denied a Board of Zoning permit for their rental property on Main Street in 2020, Sigma Pi needed a new location for their chapter meetings, events and functions. Alumni assisted their house-hunting process by raising over $100,000 to purchase the new property.

Michael Mann, the Sigma Pi Housing corporation president for the Murray State chapter, managed this project.

“We met as an alumni club board and decided that, if we could meet certain fundraising goals, we would move forward on purchasing this house,” Mann said.
Wyatt Alverson volunteers as chapter director and faculty advisor for the Murray State chapter of Sigma Pi. He said the new property was found by accident.

“[Michael Mann] and I were looking at a different property that was going to require some work when the realtor pointed out this one that would be going on the market soon,” he said. “It was well outside our budget, but we both knew that it would make a perfect fraternity house.”

Alverson said after calling a meeting of the alumni housing corporation, the team decided to begin fundraising, which resulted in the feasibility of a new property purchase..

“After only 8 months—through lots of hard work contacting alumni—the alumni housing corporation had raised nearly $100,000 in donations to put toward the purchase,” he said.

Mann said the decision to look for a new house was also because the previous rental houses and properties did not fit the needs of the chapter.

“We [also] decided to purchase this house because it…gives the alumni somewhere to come back to in order to reminisce on their days at Murray State University,” he said.

Mann said fundraising was necessary to this project, and the hard work of the alumni was the foundation for making the purchase happen.

“It was great to see the involvement of the alumni in this process,” he said.

Mann said that, from his position as president of the housing corporation, he assigned alumni to reach out to their brothers to raise money.

“One of our focuses was to get multiple people involved from each decade and to have them be the liaison in asking their close friends and brothers for donations,” he said.

Alverson said the house will be used for recruitment, fellowship and alumni reunions.

“[It will also] provide a quiet and comfortable place to study to ensure our members can excel academically and remain scholastic leaders on and off campus,” he said.

Alverson said there are potential plans to build a large chapter room somewhere on the property.

“[This is] so our undergraduate members can have their weekly chapter meetings there, host social events and have alumni events, like Homecoming and Summer Reunion,” he said.

Mann said this new location will bring more pride and involvement from Sigma Pi’s alumni.

“We have set up parts of the house to act as a museum [that holds] awards… our chapter has won over the 50-plus years at Murray State, as well as some national hardware,” he said. “To be able to have these awards and memorabilia on display is a really neat way for us to learn from the past and build off what those before us have done.”

Mann said this location will also benefit the University by bringing in alumni from Sigma Pi.

“We have already seen a very positive response from our alumni—over 600 brothers—in coming to more events and being more active on our social media pages,” he said. “This will affect the University in a positive way as more people are coming to [the] reunion, Homecoming, and are showing more pride in University activities.”

Mann said Sigma Pi will continue to fundraise with Polar Engraving to sell engraved bricks used to construct a wall honoring donors and leave their footprints on the University.