On October 6th and 7th, 2020, the North Carolina Chapter of Alpha Zeta held Rush via Zoom to foster interest in the Fraternity. Both nights, our committee heads and officers spoke about our activities and why we all enjoy being a part of Alpha Zeta. It was exciting to see a few potential new members, answer their questions and as well get a reminder of why we all love this Brotherhood so much. Due to COVID-19 restrictions on NC State’s campus, the Fraternity has decided to postpone Fall New Member Education Week until next Spring but still held Rush to prepare. Thank you to all active members and advisors who shared their sentiment for our organization and gave a warm welcome to these potential new members. And a bigger thank you to Censor Cowles who organized and made this event a success! 

On September 20th, 2020, nine Active Brothers of the North Carolina Chapter of Alpha Zeta participated in an Adopt-A-Highway Service project! Cleaning 1 mile of Trinity Road near Carter-Finley Stadium (Go Pack!), Brothers picked up 3 bags of trash and consolidated 1 bag of recyclable materials. What a great way to make an immediate impact on our Raleigh community and strengthen fellowship within the Brotherhood! Thank you to Brother Deese for organizing this project and to Scribe Furr for providing the materials!

On September 19th, 2020, thirteen Active Brothers and an Alumni from the North Carolina Chapter of Alpha Zeta traveled (or tuned in via Zoom) to Bladen County for a farm tour of the Barber Family Farm. The Barber Farm (90 acres) is a contract grower to the Duplin Winery. They grow two different varieties of Muscadine grapes, Carlos and Dorine. Brothers got the opportunity to watch the grapes being harvested in season by a grape combine harvester. One box (pictured) holds about 1,500 pounds of grapes. One 18-wheeler truck load of 38 boxes of grapes can weigh 28 to 30 tons. Thank you to Brother Barber, Sonya, George and Luke for letting us visit and giving us such a wonderful and interesting tour!

On July 10th and 11th, the newly inducted officers of the North Carolina Chapter met for a business meeting and officer retreat. The business meeting was productive in that ideas for this unprecedented year concerning community service projects, new member education week and active status requirements were discussed. Saturday (11th) part of the officer team took a trip to White Lake where afterwards they took a farm tour of a Bladen County Muscadine farm. Although much is unknown about this next semester, we are looking forward to seeing everyone at our first chapter meeting (via Zoom) on Wednesday August 12th!

Welcome to our Zoom Pledge Meeting TAKE 4! Today the pledges are going to be surprised by their new “Big”. One by one the “Bigs” will come on to the screen and announce the name of their little. Even though this is online, this is their official big in the Fraternity. The brothers are here to help guide the new pledges through this process and answer any questions they have. This year it is even more important to have them to lean on. My goal is to connect them with another AZ brother that can fill in the missing blanks in regards to missing those in-person moments. Creating that valuable one on one connection so that no one has to feel alone.

I decided that one best friend wasn’t enough, so as well as getting an active brother as a Big, I pulled in some awesome Alpha Zeta Alumni. Alumni Buddies will be part two of this process. The pledges this semester will have two amazing people in their lives. I want them to learn our traditions, values, and our passions for agriculture and the environment.

This has been an unexpected challenging semester but while it has been difficult it has also allowed me to create special situations for the pledges that would never have occurred before. For the first time, ever Alumni are able to actively help in this process. Some chose to be buddies and others can simply sign on during our zoom meetings and get to know some cool people. Zoom meetings create a safe space for everyone to collaborate and connect our lives together.

-Arlyn Smith, Pledge Chair

On Thursday April 23rd, several members of the North Carolina Chapter of Alpha Zeta attended a pre-recorded virtual field day of NC Small Grains via Zoom. This research station managed by North Carolina State University is located in Salisbury, North Carolina. In our virtual tour, we learned about weed control, fungicides, malting barley and much more. A big thank you goes out to our alumni, Kaitlyn Milstein, who not only brought this experience to our attention but was generous enough to join our Zoom call and answer a few questions about the tour and gave us guidance in our discussion. Additionally, thank you to NC State Extension for providing this wonderful educational resource for students like us.  

If anyone is interested, here is a link to Small Grains Extension’s youtube channel where we accessed the videos: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFEZmHj55mFJHZHo2o71IKIwWti2grtCM  

On Wednesday, April 15th, the North Carolina Chapter of Alpha Zeta held officer elections, selected our newest advisor and delegated awards to distinguished brothers. We shared our utmost appreciation and thanks to our previous officer team as well as our beloved seniors for all they have done for our wonderful fraternity. We are so proud of our North Carolina State University graduates and wish them nothing but the best in their future endeavors. Additionally, we want to once again say thank you to our alumni and advisors who attended the meeting as well, offering a helping hand when needed in our discussions throughout the night. Best of luck to our new officer team, and Go Pack! 

North Carolina Chapter Officers 2020-21: 

Chancellor Kristina Phelps 
Censor Taryn Cowles 
Scribe Micah Furr 
Treasurer Seth Moody 
Chronicler Madi Weast 
Newest Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Crouse, Distinguished Undergraduate Professor 

This past winter, our members created a beautiful LOVE sign for our organization and competed to win against other clubs from the college. Pictured is some of our amAZing volunteers for the day with their decorated sign during the tailgate event with Farm Bureau.