ANTHONY BESSETTI/PENN Although it wasn't part of the points competition, sorority members took turns sliding in the mud Wednesday in front of the Sigma Chi fraternity house, 246 S.Seventh St., during the fraternity's three day charity event, Derby Days. This year, the event is expected to raise about $1,500, which will go to the Indiana Lions Club Camp Orenda program.

Proceeds, expected to be about $1,500, will go to the Indiana Lions Club Camp Orenda program, held every summer to benefit mentally and physically handicapped people, according to Ryan Miller, fraternity president.

"It costs about $25,000 for them to hold Camp Orenda. ... The state will give them about $6,000 for it, and they have $6,000 just from themselves - the dues that they pay. And the rest comes from other contributions," said Joe Darby, fraternity vice president.

Points are awarded throughout the three days to the 11 participating campus sororities, which compete to raise money for Camp Orenda. Each event has a winner, and an overall winner will be named at the end of the week.

Today's events include a robo-surfing contest, like mechanical bull-riding, sponsored by U.S. Tobacco, which has signed a contract with the fraternity to help with its events. Boomerang's Bar & Grille is also a sponsor, and Anheuser Busch supplied promotional banners.

The "brother auction" today will also raise money by auctioning off fraternity members to the highest-bidding sororities, which put up real money in exchange for bidding money, 100 real dollars for 500 bidding dollars. The brothers, in return, spend the day with their respective sororities.

As a competition Wednesday, each sorority chose an '80s band -"like AC/DC, Bon Jovi" - as its theme to decorate a room in the fraternity house. Today, sticking with the same band, "They will pick a song from their group and make up words to it and act it out," Darby said, for more points.

Wednesday's events included the derby chase, during which fraternity members threw plastic derby hats from the upper fraternity window. Sorority members repeatedly gathered the hats, which were tallied for points and then again thrown from the window.

"They kind of fight for the derby. They battle it out," Darby said.

Later, a derby hunt was held in the Oak Grove.

Yesterday's point competitions were field events in the lower portion of the Oak Grove near the HUB: tug o' war, wheelbarrow races, egg toss, egg drop (into a person's mouth) and Dizzy Izzy, spinning around a baseball bat and trying to run, as well as the golden derby hunt.

"It doesn't matter (who wins), this is all for a good cause," said Suzanne Malinoski, a Tri Sigma member.

Additional proceeds will come from T-shirt sales and the derby queen competition. Whichever sorority contributes the most money will have its representative named "Derby Queen."

Each of the three days, the fraternity hosts a party for the sororities: a toga party the first day, a goldfish-themed party the second and the concert the third.

Besides scheduled events, the fraternity began its own tradition Wednesday by hosing down the front yard with water and having mud wrestling and sliding.

"It started last year. It was a real crappy day for the derby chases, and the front yard was just covered with mud. And the girls were running around in it, and we thought we should make it an event and give them points for it - cause girls don't like to get all muddy. If they wrestle in the mud to try to get a derby from one of the brothers, then they get a couple extra points," Miller said.

According to the Sigma Chi Web site at www.sigmachi.org, Derby Days began in 1933 at the Alpha Beta chapter at the University of California-Berkeley as the "Channingway Derby." Four Sigma Chi members who witnessed the event in Knoxville in 1935 took the idea back to their University of Georgia fraternity under the name "Sigma Chi Derby." By the '60s, the event had taken a philanthropic approach.

Tickets for the Redline show, available at the fraternity, are $2; admission is $4 at the show.