Clan Turns ‘Brotherhood’ Into Family Affair

Ask a fraternity member why he joined and the word “brotherhood” will start to pepper the conversation before long.

He will say a fraternity is--or should be, at its best--a band of brothers, a support group, a surrogate family whose members work and play together, suffer and triumph, and share in the rewards and consequences of college life and beyond.

The men of the Hepp family believe this perhaps more than most. In the past 14 years, there have been few pledge classes at Cal State Fullerton’s chapter of Delta Chi that had no direct contact with one or more of the Hepps.

Mark Hepp, 31, who now lives in Texas, pledged the house in 1976. His brother-in-law, Pat Flynn, also 31, pledged the next year. Flynn’s brother Bob, 30, joined him one year after that. Matt Hepp, 23, a past president of the house who will graduate in May, pledged in 1986, and his brother Marty, 24, an Army veteran, pledged last fall.

The five men say that they have seen Delta Chi through some of its lowest days as well as some of its brightest. But all say that they see their fraternity experience as enriching and enduring, if not always well-conceived.

“I came to Cal State not knowing anyone on campus,” said Bob Flynn, who is a partner with his brother in an attorney service business in Brea. “And it was a large commuter school that was very apathetic. People went to class and then they left. It was a concrete slab as far as I was concerned.

“When I joined the fraternity, though, it turned out to be a lot more than I thought. I met some really good friends and had some really good times and I got involved in Associated Students and in Camp Titan (a college-sponsored camp for underprivileged children). I liked the close association.”

However, during and after the time Flynn and his brother were Delta Chi members, the chapter began to decline. Loud parties, late-night bonfires, hazing and several incidents of misbehavior, as well as liquor and building code violations over a period of years, finally convinced the university to suspend the fraternity. The house was closed and boarded up in spring, 1987.

“The attitude of the house at the time was: ‘We can do anything we want,’ ” Matt Hepp said. “Everybody was just doing his own thing. The house was just a place to party and there was no fraternal feeling or brotherhood there. The neighbors were all over us.”

“People did a lot of stupid things that they thought would be funny,” Bob Flynn said. “Once they tried to steal a phone booth. They thought we would look up to that. It was stupid.”

“It got to the point where we were tired of that,” Matt Hepp said. “We wanted a nice house that we could live in. Everybody just said: ‘Stop. Let’s get on track again.’ ”

Over the next year and a half, the Hepps said, representatives of the national chapter offered assistance, as well as loans to renovate the house. They also expelled the more unruly members of the chapter--19 out of 33 active members. Through the use of loans and gifts, the remaining members sank $50,000 into the house for repairs.

“Some of the older guys who had already graduated came back and said not to give up, that they’d help us out,” Matt Hepp said. “National put a lot of faith in us. And the alumni still stopped by the house on their lunch breaks.”

It was during this time that the Hepp brothers’ father, Mark Hepp Sr., an architect who lives in Placentia, offered to help. A former Placentia city planning commissioner, Hepp helped coordinate the effort to bring the house up to code and aided in the attempt by the house to obtain a conditional use permit, which the city now requires of all Cal State Fullerton Greek houses.

“I talked to one of the officials from the city of Fullerton when I was first getting involved,” he said. “His advice to me was: ‘Mark, tell your son to get out of that fraternity and go to something else. It’s an “Animal House” over there. I hate that house.’

“Well, it was kind of a challenge. I said, ‘Hey, these guys are going to come out all right.’ ”

It would appear that they have. Delta Chi’s charter has been reinstated and, said Marty Hepp, the city recently granted the house a five-year renewal on its conditional use permit.

And Mark Hepp Sr. has officially become an honorary member of Delta Chi. He wears his fraternity pin in the lapel of his jacket.

“They’ve earned the right to have their chapter back,” he said. “I’m proud of that.”