A knot of husky young men chanted raucously as they jogged from Harley Hall to a waiting car, where they snatched up suitcases, storage bins and a small refrigerator before disappearing back inside a Shippensburg University residence hall.

The scene replayed itself several times as 1,700 SU freshman moved into their campus homes Thursday morning, leaving traffic tangled from the university eastward to the Exit 29 interchange of Interstate 81.

Tom Konen and a dozen Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers made short work of mounds of luggage trucked in by arriving students and their parents. The Kappa Sigma “bellhops” were just one of many Greek organizations and athletic teams that turned out to help incoming freshmen.

Joseph Spencer served as the frat's chantmaster.

“How much can you lift?” Spencer demanded rhythmically.

He got a chorus of grunts in response.

The chanting “helps pump us up,” said Kappa Sigma brother Connor Lacy, who was getting eyeballed by Denise Stevenson, the mother of incoming freshman Anastasia Stevenson.

Checking tattoo

Mom was checking out a tattoo of a ring that included a heart, a crown and a pair hands that encircled Lacy's bicep.

“My daughter has a ring like that,” Stevenson told Lacy. “You stay away from my daughter,” she admonished

Lacy and Stevenson laughed at the humor, but Lacy - rakish and muscular beneath his mildly-spiked hair - confided: “I hear that from a lot from parents.”

Moving day struggles

Not everyone was lucky enough to find a welcoming committee to tote their baggage.

At McLean Hall, a man struggled to squeeze a refrigerator on a hand truck through the doorway.

Another father looked skyward and muttered under his breath as a plastic storage bin skittered from atop a stack of other tubs, spilling its contents into the wet grass outside Naugle Hall.

Moving 1,700 students onto campus in a single day is a challenge every year, but SU administrators say they do their best to prepare for the event.

Heavily staffed

In addition to the volunteer manpower, every officer on SU's police force was on duty somewhere, directing unfamiliar motorists through the maze of campus roadways and urging drivers to pull away from the curb after disgorging their loads.

Orientation team members clad in bright green T-shirts were everywhere, answering questions, giving directions and commiserating with new students.

Leah Siddons had a sympathetic ear for the plight of new students. “I got to come in early last year as a freshman, because I had testing to do, so I didn't have to go through all of this, and I was still a nervous wreck,” she said.

Joseph Brubaker was lugging bags up the steps of Naugle Hall.

“We need to get to know the new students, and the first step to getting to know them is to help them move in,” Brubaker said. “It's strenuous work.”

Presidential visit

First-year university President William Ruud, dressed in a red ball cap and a red SU football jersey emblazoned with the numeral 1, made Harley Hall his first stop on an itinerary of moving-in-day stops.

Ruud said he's done the drill many times in the past, including at the University of Nebraska, where he and his wife were house parents to a fraternity of 75 men.

Ruud greeted students and stopped to chat along the way.

“It's all about the students, and helping them when mom and dad pull out this afternoon,” he said.

Emotional departures

Denise Stevenson was thinking about that departure after shooing Lacy and his tattoo away from her daughter.

Stevenson had a handle on her emotions - but just barely.

“I'm tearing up already,” she said. “I just want to get her (Anastasia) in here, then I can cry all the way home. I have a box of tissues in the car.”

Rhonda Litten of Greencastle was also struggling to keep her emotions in check after dropping off her daughter, Sierra.

“Everyone thing was all right until last night,” Litton said. “I was putting together a box of special things for Sierra and a lot of memories came flooding back.”

Sierra, 18, was less sentimental - at least on the surface.

“I'm excited,” she said. “I'm ready for something new.”

Her father, Curtis, added: “That's fine now, but wait for a couple of weeks until we get that phone call and she says ‘I'm lonely.' That's one of the reasons we chose Shippensburg - it's close to home.”