Pi Beta Phi Ohio: Details Of Wild Sorority Formals Emerge
share this story
The Smoking Gun has obtained reports detailing the antics of two Ohio chapters of the same sorority at separate formal dances, both of which caused significant damage to the places in which they were held.
Ohio University's chapter of Pi Beta Phi held a dance in early March at the Parkersburg Art Center in West Virginia. A letter from the center to the chapter president tells what transpired at the party:
Substantial damage was done, which will necessitate costly repairs ... These damages were caused by your members using plates loaded with food as missiles in food fights, pouring a bottle of alcohol on the dance floor and dancing in the puddles and throwing a glass-full of liquor up onto the ceiling. The broken sink (which was in a location outside the area rented for your event) is a result of one of your members and her date attempting to have sexual relations on it, an act which was witnessed by the event's caterer, who walked in on them.
And that wasn't the only instance of public sex. The letter goes on:
The professional bartender hired for the event personally witnessed a couple engaging in sexual congress, while surrounded by a cheering throng. The catering team interrupted two of your members engaging in sexual relations under of the banquet tables.
The center stated that it would have to strip and refinish its dance floor, replace the carpeting in its ballroom and repaint in the aftermath of the party. The letter said that it took four people and a commercial cleaning crew three days to scrub the center clean.
Meanwhile, a month after the Parkersburg party, Miami of Ohio University's chapter of Pi Beta Phi wreaked havoc on Lake Lyndsay Lodge in Hamilton, Ohio. A letter from the lodge's owner to the sorority said that when students arrived by the busload on the night of April 9, most were already "heavily intoxicated" and some "could barely manage to walk inside the facility."
And that was just the beginning. As the night continued, one student "became angry and decided to flip the entire appetizer table over." Two girls "continually vomited throughout the facility." Students threw crystal vases off the lodge's porch, defecated outside the building and broke the mane off of an ornamental lion. When a lodge worker found a couple having sex in the caterer's closet, they cursed at her.
Lodge owner Lyndsay Rapier-Phipps wrote:
We are appalled at the student's [sic] behavior. My husband and I are graduates of Miami University, and we both agree that college students can drink and have a good time, but last Friday was not just a bunch of college students drinking and having a good time. It was bunch of college students getting totally obliterated and behaving like immature children.
According to an earlier report, Miami of Ohio's chapter of Pi Beta Phi has been placed on probation. Miami President David Hodge said the school was "extremely disappointed and embarrassed by the behavior displayed by [the] students."
The Parkersburg News and Sentinel reports that the art center has been fully compensated through insurance for damages done. The national office of Pi Beta Phi alleged that the center's claims were "grossly exaggerated."
Read the letters with all the dirty details in full here.
Loading comments… 
First Posted: 05/26/10 09:47 AM ET Updated: 05/25/11 05:35 PM ET