Craig Lowden '96
Enrolling at the University of Arizona after completing four years of service in the United States Navy, Brother Lowden sought to immerse himself in everything the college experience had to offer. As an undergraduate he was involved with the fraternity from the get-go, moving into the chapter house and winning Pledge of the Semester, also serving as Outer Guard and GMC. He was also involved on campus and in the community, writing and performing with Comedy Corner, co-hosted an ungodly early radio show on KAMP, and, alongside brothers Josh Butout ’95 and Joe Gallego ’97 coached a youth roller hockey team for the YMCA.
As an alumnus he has continued to be involved with Gamma-Rho, serving for several years as an Assistant Alumnus Advisor, and for some time he worked with Brother Mark McLear to ’88 to arrange quarterly Tucson alumni lunches. Working with FMG has also meant countless hours providing back-end database support, updating the chapter website and promoting events and chapter philanthropy.
In 2014 Craig and Katie said, “Adios!” to the US and moved to South America after Katie was offered a teaching position in Asuncion, Paraguay. After three years they moved to their current home of Bogota, Colombia. Lowden has continued to work from the “FMG International” office wherever her job offers, or their travels take them.
“I had zero intention of joining a fraternity when entering school. I ended up joining Kappa Sigma because of the efforts of my brother and the camaraderie was something I was missing in my post-Navy life. Turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
“Gamma-Rho was a place that accepted me for being slightly oddball, not your factory issued frat boy self. A look around the guys of the chapter in ’96 you had a wide variety of people with varying interests, backgrounds and personalities. I fit right in by not being like anyone else.
“It was also a place that reinforced some of the skill and values instilled in me by the U.S. Navy and enabled me jump on a lot of options and explore what the collegiate experience had to offer.
“It turned the college experience from being anonymously awash in a sea of 35,000 in people in which I could arrive on campus bright and early in the morning and leave eight hours later without running into a single soul I recognized into a place where I literally couldn’t walk across the hall in Modern Languages getting from one class to another without running into at least two people I knew.
“The same has continued on as an alumnus. Ernest Hemingway once observed ‘there are at least two Estonians in every port’. Whenever, wherever I return to the US, it seems there is a Gamma-Rho ready to meet up and recollect experiences. Only now we’re enjoying slightly better-quality bevvies than ‘back in the day.’
“Ultimately, it’s all but impossible to try and put into words the value of the bonds I made some 20 years ago in college and have made since.”
