2010 Founders’ Day Message

On October 23, more than 215,000 Kappa Deltas will celebrate our 113th anniversary. It all started with four young women.

“Who were those girls, college students as we once were, who saw the vision and had the courage to conceive and build this wonderful Kappa Delta of ours? There were four of them; four close friends who wished to share their ideal of friendship with others. These four were Lenora Ashmore, Mary Sommerville Sparks, Sara Turner and Julia Gardiner Tyler. All were students at the State Female Normal School of Virginia, at Farmville.” (“A History of Kappa Delta Sorority 1897-1972”) .

Our founders took their friendship and created our sisterhood. The principles upon which they did so - truth, honor and beauty - are as important today as they were in 1897.

“Picture to yourself an October evening in 1897, a small group of earnest girls, friends through a year or more of school, with an ever growing desire to put into school life something which would be fine and lasting, deciding to found a sorority. There was the desire for group activity, but for a different and better group,” (1927 Convention speech by Genevieve Venable Holladay, first national president)

What makes Kappa Delta so special – then and now - is the sum of the talents and treasures that our individual members bring to the good of the organization. We are unique in our individuality but united in our common commitments. What confidence we gain, knowing that what none of us might do as one, there is nothing we cannot achieve together, as we “…press forward toward the prize, a greater and better Kappa Delta.”

My love in Kappa Delta,
Beth Martin Langford
National President