Derby Days: Honoring our Angels

Remembering Asha Weir, Peyton Stewart, Niamh Rolston, and Deslyn Williams

This year, the Sigma Chi Fraternity is hosting a philanthropy week to honor these women by giving their utmost support to their families. “Derby Days,” as they call it, will be a week-long event to raise money to:

1. Constructing a monument next to the White Cross with a plaque and four crosses with their names on them as a way for friends and loved ones to remember them, visit them, and pray for them.

2. Donations directly to the families to aid with funeral costs and any legal fees involved

3. In order to make Pacific Coast Highway safer, we are attempting to adopt a stretch of the highway and pushing for speed cameras, rumble strips, and more.

4. Finally, we are working with the Alpha Phi Foundation to donate towards scholarships honored in their names.

Each of these women had a special place in our hearts. They have been our friends ever since we have come onto campus, and have impacted not only us, but the Pepperdine community more than words can describe. These four women weren’t just our fellow classmates and friends, they were a part of our family. They were the women that each and every one of us looked up to, and inspired us every day to become a better man, friend, and person in each of our everyday actions. Seeing these women gone, is something that has not only affected our chapter greatly, but also our individual brothers, our sisters in Alpha Phi, and the Pepperdine community as a whole. The shock and news of this tragedy have plagued our entire community, and our individual chapters, and have spread grief and tears to each of us. None of us want this news to be true, none of us want to see these women who brought light into our world and lived each day with the goal of doing so gone.

As we continue to pray and come together as a community, we live with remembrance of how precious our lives are. Nothing could have prepared us, nor the families, for the loss of these four bright, beautiful, and impactful women in our worlds. What they have done for all of us within our chapter as men, and for this community, is something that we could never be more grateful for. Through each of their actions, their kindness, their compassion, and most importantly, their love for their friends and families, they have left something behind that will never be forgotten.

Although these angels have been lost on this earth, the impact they have had on this world and our community is something that will never be lost. Their names will continue to live forever with us in our everyday lives but will stay with the Pepperdine community endlessly. As we work through this, we turn towards each other, not only as a shoulder for comfort but as a reminder of how gifted our lives are to be touched by the impact of these women. Through these trying times and through the grief we are enduring, we ask for your prayers, compassion, and nothing but love for the families of these young women, and the sisters of Alpha Phi, as they all go through this time.

To our beautiful angels lost, we will love each of you endlessly, and cherish each of the memories we have made in our time we had together. You will forever continue to live in our hearts, and the impact you have made on each of us will never cease to prevail. Rest easy, and know the light you have shined upon us on this earth, will live within us for eternity to come.

This week is in honor of them, any and all proceeds will be going towards their families (Tracy Rolston, Vinita Weir, Olive Williams, Barry Stewart) honoring their light in every way possible. We will be constructing memorials in honor of them, aiding families with legal and funeral costs, as well as working towards honoring the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in their name.

With Love, and Sincerely,

Thomas Monthofer

Sigma Chi Kappa Omicron