PLT has had a number of founding groups from its inception in 1924, but none was more important than the group of young men who arrived on campus in 1946, after the end of WWII. Three men, Dick Watson, Clint Marantz, and Tony Martin, sought to find like-minded veterans seeking a new social experience that would be revolutionary for its time. Having just fought with men of disparate backgrounds, they believed that race and religion could not be a factor in choosing a social fraternity. Hazing, a common practice at the time, could not be tolerated.
Discouraged, but undaunted, by the fact that fraternity doors were closed to Jewish and black students, they decided to start a new fraternity that would be open to all young men with no exclusionary clauses of any kind. Older alumni members of PLT learned about these returning veterans and their precedent-setting social and humanitarian vision and immediately realized that the new group was a natural extension of what they had envisioned for PLT. Following many meetings and joint planning efforts, the two groups merged in 1947. Phi Lambda Theta was again a vibrant and groundbreaking chapter on the Bucknell campus. Their message was so unique at this moment in history that the new founding group was featured in Colliers, a major national magazine. The course was set, the idea embraced. PLT had dared to be different, setting a standard for future generations of young men who wanted to make a difference in their lives and the lives of others.