One day in the Fall of 97, a young man by the name of Johnnie Jones was searching the net. In his searching, he came upon the name of a fraternity called Iota Phi Theta Fraternity Inc. Coming from a family that is mostly greek, Johnnie thought that he had seen it all. He never had heard of I PHI T though. So he dismissed this as some lonely brother with nothing to do, done got on the net and made up a bogus fraternity. Months later in January of 98, he attended a Southern Black Leadership Conference at Texas A&M. He saw a bunch of brothers having a good time and the letters on their chest were foriegn to him. They read Iota Phi Theta. He remembered of the day on the internet and he was in shock that their was such a frat. He then introduced himself to some of the brothers and listened to what they said about Iota. He was told to contact national secretary Rob Clark. He did and after listening to Rob and doing some serious soul searching, he decided to do it! Johnnie was in Arkansas where they had never heard of Iota, so he knew this would be a great challenge. He then started telling brothers on the yard of his idea to start Iota, he even went to such lenghts as writing personalized letters to every brother he thought could help him get this off. Everyone seemed excited. Of course when the time came to do it, the brothers came up with great excuses. He then found out that brothers love talking and dreaming, but when it comes time to make a dream a reality the only you can count on is yourself. One other brother decided to take the plunge. His name was Charlie Simpson,  a well dressed  6'2 band member. Although they did not know each other Iota had already started to bring them together and so they took a long road that would take seven months to finish. They finally crossed the burning sands on Dec. 21, 1998 at 9:55 p.m. They were crossed by regional polaris Steve Birdine. The next semester was spent trying to get the fraternity started in Arkansas and get IOTAS name out. They traveled to parties at different schools and got put on the radio and threw a party or two. Then they ran their first line with the help of Southwest Missouri State and they crossed two brothers Temarcus Hill and Jesse Dorsey and so Iota is born in Arkansas and at the next conclave, the University of Central Arkansas Colony became the Gamma Upsilon Chapter of Iota Phi Theta.