Tradition will continue this week with the Tradition Stone's annual reappearance, but where it is now and who will attempt to steal it this year remains a mystery.

No one is confirming whether or not they will make a grab for the stone this year, but with Starvation Gulch a few days away, tradition dictates that students must already be hatching plans to pilfer the illustrious 400-pound rock.

The ritual began on March 22, 1957, when then-university President Ernest Patty declared prohibition of alcohol and other student activities on campus. Students protested with a mock funeral, symbolically burying their empty liquor bottles with a headstone inscribed "Here Lies Tradition – 1957."

"We want a University that Alaskans can be proud of," Patty said at the time. "The alumni are ashamed of it and it causes many students to go elsewhere."

The next day, Patty ordered the stone destroyed. But students removed the stone before the administration could lay its hands on it, and have kept it hidden ever since.

Due to secrecy, gaps in the stone's history prevent guessing who might be hatching a plan to steal it this year, but most involved in the past agree that the usual suspects are Sigma Phi Epsilon, the Student Firefighters' Association, and the Honors Program.

Firefighters stole back the stone about three years ago and managed to keep it for the next two. The group did not want to keep it for a third year, firefighter Shawn McGilvary said, so they loaded it into the back of a truck and took it to Starvation Gulch to get rid of it.

"It's something that should be passed onto a group every year," he said.

Although it was out in the open, stealing the stone was not an easy task. Honors made a "half-hearted" play for the stone, Honor's Brad Krick said, jumping into the back of the truck during the festivities. But the firefighters drove off before they could unload it, he said.  SigEp later succeeded where they failed.

One of the fraternity's tricks over the years is keeping the stone's location a secret even within its own ranks. Patrick Frymark, the groups' vice-president of finance, had "no idea" where the stone was, adding that only three brothers knew. He didn't even know whom.

Several calls eventually revealed that Woodie Bushre was one of the brothers in-the-know, but when asked if the group would allow a photo of the stone, he said he'd ask the brothers during Monday Night Football; the fraternity later declined in order to prolong the secret.

Although usually the stone is hidden around campus, many groups have gone to unusual lengths to hide it. The stone reportedly spent several winters at the bottom of the Chena River, and was also hidden in a swimming pool, according to McGilvary.

For some, taking the stone off-campus wasn't even safe enough. According to past reports, the stone once made it to Argentina, and Alaska Airlines ended up flying it back for free. Other reports had it arriving in Washington and Texas, and various accounts have a chunk of the stone being sent with a soldier to Vietnam during the war.

The stone also did a stint in jail in October 1992 when police sought the stone as evidence in a fraud and forgery scandal after an alleged attempt to sell it. Although no arrests were ever made, the stone remained in lock-up, and students protested with several "Free the Stone" campaigns. But the stone escaped in early 1993 when police "accidentally" left an evidence locker open.

Time has not been kind to the stone, which has been broken into as many as four pieces over the years. Alumni and ASUAF captured the stone long enough in February 1993 for a ceramist to repair it and reattach its plaque.

No matter its condition, the fraternity is promising to publicly display the stone, Frymark said.

"The only thing I can tell you is you will see it at Starvation Gulch," he said.

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