The walk to class does not vary much from day to day. Empty beer bottles peek out among the bushes from last weekend's party. The worn pair of New Balance sneakers still hangs from the power line, and the orange bus fills up just as you reach the front of the line. One thing always changes, though -- the color scheme and message on Beta Bridge.
The University community has been using Beta Bridge to publicize events and make announcements for about 30 years, Board of Visitors Secretary Sandy Gilliam said. Gilliam graduated from the University in 1955 and remembers when announcements were made on a different bridge.
"In my time, they painted the railroad bridge by the Corner, but that was nothing much more than athletic scores painted there," Gilliam said.
While students have the freedom to paint Beta Bridge, they must not forget to pay homage to Delta Upsilon fraternity. If the painters do not write "Thanks DU," brothers at DU may black out the message.
"The last time I remember doing it was when I was a pledge," fourth-year commerce student and president of DU Robert Gray said.
Gray said that they black out the messages because it is tradition.
"When this used to be the Beta house, people used to write 'Thanks Beta' on the bridge," Gray said. "When DU took over the house, we took over the tradition."
The current DU house was the Beta house until 1971, when local alumni closed it because there were unpaid bills and evidence of drug traffic, Gilliam said. The DU house was located about where Madison House is today, but it burned down.
"The story is that we played pranks on [Beta] and they shot a flaming arrow into our house and burned it down," Gray said. "And part of the story is that they got kicked off of the main fraternity row."
While this makes a good story, DU actually bought the old Beta house, and Beta used the money to purchase a new house by the stadium in 1980, Gilliam said.
The DU and Beta rivalry, however, still lives.
Gilliam, who was a member of Beta, said, "I think DU is trying to get rid of the Beta name. They don't own the bridge. They don't control it. It is nothing more than an informal, unofficial thing."
Gray, however, said DU is not trying to obliterate the Beta name by insisting on the writing of "Thanks DU."
"We're not going to argue tradition," Gray said.
Nevertheless, Beta Bridge remains the community's bridge and the school's message board. But one must continue to pay tribute to DU or take the risk of walking past a blank bridge in the morning.
"We store lots of paint here just from painting the rooms in the house," Gray said.
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