Bands play in honor of Jake Stewart and Caroline Bagwell

In honor of two GCSU students killed last year, Jake Stewart and Caroline Bagwell, Kappa Sigma and Delta Zeta held their first Remembrance Jam at Capital City Thursday, April 23.

Opening for the concert was The Macchios, a band comprised of brothers of Kappa Sigma. Junior rhetoric major and band member Alex Jones was involved in a lot of the planning of the Jam including getting the bands together.

“Jake always bugged me to start a band and that he’d be the singer; sadly we started up a band right after his passing,” Jones said. “Each member of our band are members of Kappa Sigma, and we all loved Jake dearly. It was only fitting that we played at the event; it’s what Jake would have wanted.”

The Maccios have played in Milledgeville almost 30 times and wanted to open the concert in honor of Stewart.

Also performing at the concert was a band based out of Athens called Mama’s Love.

“They are an extremely popular band from Athens who have played at big venues and festivals throughout the Southeast. I was deeply honored and excited when they agreed to come,”

Jones said. “These guys are going to be the next big jam band out of Athens, so it was very cool that they came down and helped us out.”

The president of Delta Zeta, Anette Torres, worked with Jones to organize and publicize the event.

“Delta Zeta and Kappa Sigma both knew that we wanted to do something for Jake and Caroline and we decided to team up and do something that both Jake and Caroline would love,” Torres said.

DZ and Kappa Sig decided to team up together on behalf of Bagwell and Stewart to make the concert an even bigger hit.

“Seeing as how we both came together as a fraternity and a sorority who both lost a beloved member of their organization to a car accident, we wouldn’t want it any other way then to team up with Kappa Sig,” Torres said. “We were there for them and they were especially there for us when both accidents happened and we couldn’t ask for a better group of men to join up with.”

The concert was a success, raising about $3,000 to go to a scholarship in honor of Bagwell and Stewart. The scholarship is in its final stages and will be given out to someone in the Greek community.

Not only were the funds raised for the scholarship, attendees of the Remembrance Jam also benefitted from the increased sense of community this night brought.

“The biggest thing that showed how sucessful it was was the diversity of people that showed up. Members from every corner of campus life were present,” Jones said. “From a community standpoint it was quite an evening of fellowship. And from a Greek standpoint, it was an awesome display of Greek unity which is something that should definitely happen more often than it does.”

Over 250 tickets were sold, and the Bagwell and Stewart scholarship foundation will benefit from the money raised. They are looking to hold the Remembrance Jam each year and hoping to in the future attract bigger crowds and bigger bands.

“Though it’s been more than a year, the impact these two amazing people had on everyone that knew them will last a life time,” Jones said. “We still love them and miss (them) more than words could ever express.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on May 1 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry