I recently got married on April 26th. I meant to write earlier but all I had time for was a picture. Going along with what Jeb Murphy said, “SKN has been a wonderful part of my life”. I know that people are wondering why I am starting by writing about SKN and not my wedding. Well, here is a little insight into what I have taken from this organization. Thanks to Sigma Kappa Nu, I met Colleen, my now wife, at a mixer with the Theta Phi Alpha sorority back in the Fall of 2002 while I was pledging. As SKN was changing with the moving from house to house she was there along for the ride with me. She helped me when I was president and trying to find a new location in the Winter of 2005. A few months after I found the residence that the fraternity is currently in, Colleen moved in with me since I was the only one living there. I needed help with the rent and it just worked for us. Shortly after that we got additional roommates and the fraternity started to grow again. Colleen understood how important the fraternity was to me and she would even temporarily relocate herself during the two “Most Wonderful Times of the Year.”
We graduated in 2006. We then moved to Florida where I worked for the slave driving Bauers’ (thanks again for the opportunity). Upon our first visit back to Erie for the fraternity’s alumni annual Casino weekend, I proposed at the site of the original Skin House. We left Florida and moved to Pittsburgh and started planning our wedding in Erie. During the planning we visited the fraternity house almost every other weekend and seeing two new pledge classes get inducted gave us both that nostalgic feeling of being around something unique.
On the wedding day, I was looking down the row of my groomsmen and almost everyone was a brother. Also, a good number of the guests were brothers from all different time periods, not just from when I was in school. Since the fraternity was such a huge part of both of our lives lead me to lavaliere Colleen as part of my gift to her. And, being that I have been so close with the actives in the years after my graduation I swallowed my pride and took their punishment.
I currently have been involved in planning the reunion and trying to find a permanent residence for the actives. I hope to see all of you this summer on July 25th when we can have a few drinks and talk about how it was, is, and will be.
Stephen Hornyak
Bro Powder
