District History - The Western District » Kappa Kappa Psi | Tau Beta ...

II. Start of the Western District
In the 1980ʼs, the National Headquarters had started a reorganization and realignment of the
districts of Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma to accommodate the growth that was
occurring throughout the nation in the organizations after the final contractions of the 1970ʼs. In
1987, at the National Convention held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it was decided that the states
of what was then District I (Idaho, Oregon, and Washington), District II (Arizona,
California, Nevada, and Utah), and District X (Alaska and Hawaii), along with parts of
Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico (the portions of those states west of the Rocky
Mountains) were to be combines into one district for the Western United States. They also
decided to scrap the Roman numeral designation used at that time and to adopt a new
naming system based on the geography of the various new districts.
The original name proposed by the National Jurisdiction Committee was the West District.
However, members of the delegation from the newly formed district didnʼt like that name, and
lobbied for a slightly different twist on the name. Their efforts paid off, and the new district
was christened the Western District. This slight difference was the beginning of the reputation
that the Western District would hold (and still holds today) for being just a little bit different, a
little bit further ahead on progressive ideas.
In 1988, Psi and Epsilon Kappa chapters at UCLA hosted the first Convention of the Western
District in Los Angeles, California. At this convention, the decision was made to hold a
convention every year rather than two years, as had occurred in the old District II. Also
changed was the length of the terms of district officers, which were shortened to a single year.
The name for the district publication, the Accent, was selected at this convention, and the first
publishers for the Western District were the newly activated Iota Alpha and Eta Omega
chapters from California State University, Fresno. 1
1 UCLA was the publisher of the district publication from 1986 1988, but that was when they were still part of District II.
They did publish the district newsletter in 1987, as one of the two year terms that were in place at the time