Alpha Gamma Rho members happy to host Ben Carson

Alex Hanson
October 26, 2015

The members of Alpha Gamma Rho had a unique opportunity this past Saturday: host a breakfast event for Ben Carson, the new Republican frontrunner in Iowa.  

When the Carson campaign couldn’t get a room in the Memorial Union for a Saturday morning event, it reached out to Alpha Gamma Rho early last week asking to host an event, said Alpha Gamma Rho President Matt Kerns, graduate in business administration, and Mitchell Hora, junior in agricultural systems technology.

The event was only publicized for a few days after being finalized Tuesday. Between 250 and 300 people, mostly students, turned out for the 8:30 a.m. event Saturday morning.

Hora said the campaign took care of most of the planning and setup, like paying for the Casey’s Pizza that was provided, setting up the sound and stage at the event, and chalking around campus to publicize the event.

Carson also taped an appearance on NBC’s Sunday morning program “Meet The Press” inside the fraternity home before the event, and NBC wanted access to the house for setup at 5 a.m. Saturday morning.

“When we were approached with it, we were like, ‘this would be pretty cool.’ We were expecting a couple hundred people,” Hora said. “It ended up being a huge event, with ‘Meet The Press’ coming, a lot of national news coming. It’s turned into a huge thing.”

Carson gave a speech, answered questions and met with attendees at the event for about an hour until he went on to a book signing across town.

Hora said a lot of media was present at the event, as well. CBS and NBC News had cameras at the event, and The Des Moines Register and Daily Mail wrote stories. The New York Times ran a front-page story Monday about Carson that featured interviews from attendees at the Alpha Gamma Rho event.

Kerns said he reached out to Alpha Gamma Rho alumni and heard back from students and alumni about how the breakfast was hosted.

“I personally had a lot of students reach out to me — people I know and even ones I didn’t [know] — and thank us for hosting it,” Kerns said. “They were glad they had the opportunity to [attend]. I had people from other universities and other AGR chapters that said it was cool to see our fraternity help out in this light.”

Alpha Gamma Rho also hosted U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, last year during the midterm elections, and has hosted Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds in the past as well.

“I think our members have always been politically active, and because we have that connection with a lot of campaigns, with that personal connection, [campaigns] say, ‘We’re coming to Ames and we need somewhere to go,’” Kerns said.

Kerns said Alpha Gamma Rho was happy to host the event because of the impact it could have on students and Ames. He said the fraternity likes to encourage members and other students to be politically active.

“I think it’s a really good opportunity for any organization that has a chance to host a presidential candidate,” Kerns said. “It’s a pretty big deal. We’re happy to host that and not only host it at Iowa State but in the greek community, and give other students a chance to come out to see presidential candidates.”

Hora said he hopes this event brings attention to other campaigns, and that Alpha Gamma Rho would be willing to host more candidates in the future.

“I think it’s cool because Iowa is so highly thought of with politics because we’re the first caucus state,” he said. “It’s really cool that we can highlight Ames and Iowa State along with that.”