Whenever Don Hunt ’76 travels to Burlington, he makes a point of stopping by 420 College Street.

The three-story brick house, with its grand portico and massive Corinthian columns, has been a familiar sight to Hunt for more than five decades. Beneath the black letters spelling out “Sigma Phi,” he sees much more than a fraternity house. He sees family.

“I practically grew up as a Sigma Phi,” Hunt says.

Hunt’s father, Paul Henry Hunt ’49, and uncle, Mitchell Jerry Hunt ’49, both served in the U.S. Army’s wartime missions prior to attending UVM; together, they joined Sigma Phi in 1947. Hunt’s father remained active with the fraternity after graduation, and Hunt grew up with many of his father’s fraternity brothers and their children, as close as cousins. He followed their path, joining the Alpha of Vermont chapter himself in 1973.

As a UVM student, Hunt served as house manager and house steward, helping to maintain the facility and oversee kitchen operations.

“Those were significant learning experiences for me,” he says. “It kind of grounded me and provided a family-like setting with a bunch of brothers. Those years are some of the best years of my life.”

A Scholarship Rooted in Family, Fraternity and Vermont

Today, Hunt remains deeply invested in the house and the fraternity that helped shape him. Like any historic home, it requires continuous care, maintenance and funding—a responsibility shared by undergraduate members and alumni.

"Those connections helped me understand the level of attention needed to maintain the house and its traditions. Our alumni members are the house landlords as well as mentors to the active brotherhood. We all share the responsibility of continuing historic traditions in a 120-year-old home. That chore becomes easier and creates stronger bonds when you have graduates who live nearby,” Hunt says, “because they’re the ones who are going to be called upon for service when things need to happen.”

With strengthening the fraternity’s future in mind, he and his wife Andrea created the Hunt Family Scholarship at UVM, established in memory of his father and uncle. The scholarship will support full-time undergraduate Sigma Phi members who are Vermont residents and have expressed an interest in remaining in the state after graduation. Preference will be given to students who live in the Sigma Phi house and are active in the fraternity, at UVM and in their communities. Students who meet the requirements of the scholarship criteria must write an essay on topics related to Sigma Phi to apply.

“I’ve thought for a number of years about this scholarship for improving the number of Sigma Phi alumni who remain in Vermont,” Hunt says. “They can then become a better resource to the ongoing operations of the house.”

Founded at Union College in 1827, Sigma Phi was the first “national fraternity” after establishing a second chapter on another campus. Nearly two centuries later, its Alpha of Vermont chapter continues traditions that Hunt believes are worth preserving. The chapter at UVM formed in 1845, and in 1903 completed construction of the University’s first Greek Chapter House on the corner of College and South Williams Streets. With roughly 30 to 40 active members, the fraternity is intentionally smaller than many of its counterparts, fostering the familiarity and close bonds that Hunt remembers from his own

undergraduate years.

As Hunt continues to check in on the house on the hill that has meant so much to his family, the Hunt Family Scholarship will help ensure it will be there for generations of Sigma Phi brothers still to come.