Brewer Requests Frat to Paddle In California

Anheuser-Busch, the largest beer company in the world, last week invited the Harvard chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) to participate in a 72-hour canoe marathon in Los Angeles next February.

The company that produces Budweiser and Michelob has offered to fly the 20 members of Harvard's only fraternity and ten other students to California next week for the event, which will take place in the Anheuser-Busch Gardens near the Budweiser Breweries.

Kip Smith '77, president of SAE, said yesterday his organization has tentatively accepted the invitation, "contingent on Dean Epps's approval," which he will request today.

The Dean of Students must grant his permission before students can use the University's name. The regulations add that the name may not be used in connection with commercial business.

Dean Archie Epps III said yesterday students approached him last year about a race in the Gardens, but he refused to allow them to enter it because "it was a commercially-sponsored race."

Smith said he thinks the race "is in no way promoting a product," adding, "I don't think it will harm the Harvard image--we're not going to pose for pictures guzzling Bud or anything."

Southern Californian colleges have competed in the race for the last three years, but Anheuser-Busch decided to "make it East versus West" this year by extending invitations to students at Harvard and the University of Maryland, Bill Cosher, advertising manager for the company, said yesterday.

"It's part of our college promotion," he said.

The race's organizers expect each canoe to be paddled by one man and one woman, but Smith said SAE would admit 10 Harvard women, "selected from the members friends and whatnot," as "social members" for the race.

Joseph Finnegan, the race coordinator, said yesterday SAE was invited because the UCLA organization that competes annually for the "Peter Piddling Paddle Trophy" had several SAE members in it who contacted the Harvard chapter to extend the company's invitation.