Range Rider, Volume 24, Number 1, January-February 1973 Page: 2
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Range Rider and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Hardin-Simmons University Library.
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Page 2 RANGE RIDER
School of Music CrescendoesJanuary-February 1973
0 . .
More Music Majors Than Ever...
BAND FOUNDATION
IS OVER THE TOP
The Cowboy Band Foundation's efforts to meet
the challenge gift of C. V. Wood Jr. of Los Angeles
in helping to pay for the Home of the Cowboy Band
has gone over the top.
This word came at the Range Rider deadline in
early January from Hal Pender, chairman of the
Foundation board of directors.
On dedication day, April 29, 1972, the Founda-
tion needed an additional $70,000 in pledges to fully
underwrite the $265,000 facility. Wood, H-SU ex
and former trick rope artist with the band, pledged
$20,000 to underwrite the balance needed, if the ex
Cowboy Band members and other friends would
underwrite the balance. This has now been accom-
plished.
Pender said the Foundation owes an Abilene
bank $85,000 on the building. This debt is totally
underwritten by the pledges in hand which include
the $20,000 challenge by Wood.
Pender commended exes of the band for honor-
ing their pledges during 1972, saying, "Almost 100
per cent came forth with their gifts." This kind of
support will be needed in 1973 and the years to fol-
low until the debt is completely liquidated.
The chairman said that for the next several years
the Foundation will promote the "big brother" en-
dowment program which will provide scholarships,
salary supplement for faculty personnel, and funds
for trips and instruments. He said that the Founda-
tion has a goal of $1 million for this project which
would provide at least $50,000 a year income.%:
By CHARLES RICHARDSON
Information Director
The Hardin-Simmons University School of Mu-
sic on the eve of 1973 Homecoming has the largest
number of majors in its history. Dr. T. W. (Jack)
Dean, head of the School of Music, said that 155
young men and women are majoring in music. 23
students are involved in graduate studies and anoth-
er 35 are undergraduate music minors.
"This is the reason for our having the largest
number of faculty members in the School of Music
in the history of this institution," said Dr. Dean.
The School of Music offers majors in music edu-
cation and church music; applied music, which in-
cludes voice, piano, organ and orchestral instru-
ments; and theory and composition.
The largest area in undergraduate studies is the
field of music education and church music. 65 per-
cent of the students in the School of Music are in
this field. "We are one of the prime suppliers of
church musicians in the denomination," said Dr.
Dean. "Our students consistently have been greatly
in demand by school systems all over the Southwest.
"We have never had enough graduates to supply
the demands of music educators and churches." The
dean said that actually this is a paradox because
right now the music field is overcrowded. "Our
graduates, however, are having no trouble getting
jobs."
Dean said that a large number of the graduates
of the School of Music remain in Texas.
One of the newest and largest music professions
is the field of church music. The Southern Baptist
Convention now has full-time ministers of music in
many churches, but this was not true on a large
scale until the early 50s, according to Dr. Dean.
How do the college students of today compare
with those a few years back? "Our students come to
us now with more musical experiences uponwhichwe
build," said Dr. Dean. "They are not any smarter,
but they are more teachable because of the experi-
ence that they have had in public schools and church
music programs." Dean said that because of the stu-
dents' background, professors are able to teach
them at a much faster rate than a few years ago.w - -. y _ . row~;" ~~~,:~
MARION McCLURE at the Home of the Cowboy Band. Mrs. Mc Ib~lure is at the
entranc. Openhouse or Cowby Bandexes i schedued durng HomcomingHomecoming Is Band's 50th Anniversary
The Cowboy Band of Hardin-Simmons Univer-
sity will be observing its 50th anniversary during
Homecoming, Feb. 16-17.
Exes from bands of all years are expected to be
returning to the campus. One project all will be in-
terested in seeing is the new Home of the Cowboy
Band, dedicated in April, 1972.
The Cowboy Band of Hardin-Simmons Univer-
sity probably got "that way" because the school,
then Simmons College, couldn't afford to outfit its
traditional band in new uniforms to perform at a
chamber of commerce convention.
It was back in 1923 that Grady Kinsolving, sec-
retary of the Abilene Chamber of Commerce, asked
the band to represent Abilene at a West Texas Cham-
ber of Commerce gathering in San Angelo, quite an
honor considering the fact that the little band, which
had been in existence since about 1909, had previ-
ously ventured no farther than Baird, Tuscola and
View, traveling by train and horse-drawn coach.
D. O. Wiley, the first of only two permanent Cow-
boy Band directors, came to the school in the mid
twenties, just about the time that Will Rogers, Ameri-
ca's most beloved humorist, heard the band and be-
came its friend and promoter; he gave the boys his
blessings and $200 *to go buy some new tunes."
By 1925 the band was such a going concern that
it was incorporated, with Gib Sandefer, son of the
college president, becoming full-time manager and
Y. P. Kuhn taking over as drum major.
Kuhn was the college gym coach and it may
have been his athletic orientation that led him to
devise the distinctive parade step, which moves the
band along at 200 beats per minute as opposed to
the more sedate 130 steps used by many bands.Birthday of the "cowboy," which changes the
band's pace from a hurry to a near halt, is not
known.
The marching style of the band couldn't be regis-
tered like the name, but it became one of the band's
real trademarks.
It was traveling time now-to the band's first
rodeo in Austin and the reunion of Confederate Vet-
erans in Dallas in 1925, to another Confederate re-
union in Birmingham in 1926, to yet another Rebel
meet in Tampa, Florida, and the inauguration of
Governor Dan Moody in 1927.
The band's performance at the 1928 National
Democratic Convention at Houston was the outfit's
first taste of national politics and also convinced
Texas that the musical cowboys from Abilene were
valuable as goodwill ambassadors to the rest of the
nation, and in 1929 the band made its greatest sortie
to date from Texas to grace the inauguration of
President Herbert Hoover in Washington, D. C.
Back to Abilene came the band just long enough
to pack bags for a trip to Europe in 1930, which
included concerts in Ireland, Scotland and England
before crossing the Channel for a tour of the conti-
nent.
The Cowboy Band soon gained fame as the top
rodeo band in the country, playing for world cham-
pionship rodeos in New York's Madison Square
Garden, Boston Garden, Cheyenne, Wyo., Colorado
Springs, Phoenix, Little Rock, Alexandria, La., as
well as the annual Stamford Cowboy Reunion where
the band performed with Will Rogers for the last
time in July 1935. A month later, Rogers and his
friend Wiley Post died in the crash of Post's small
plane at Point Barrow, Alaska. The Cowboy Bandhad lost a good friend.
The year 1934 was an important one. That was
the year that D. O. Wiley handed the Cowboy Band
baton to Marion B. (Little Mac) McClure, who has
since attained the somewhat more dignified tag of
"Prof."
The thirties were good years for the band. Johnny
Reagan, the English cowboy who joined the band
during its tour of England, did his magic with a
whip. He was with the band until 1940. "Sheriff"
Will Watson was on hand, and in 1936 the White
Horse "Bear" first appeared with the band at a rodeo
in San Angelo, Convention at Houston and Texas
State Fair. The decade was rounded out by a trip
to the Kiwanis International Convention in Dallas
in 1959.
During the 1960s the band performed at the VFW
convention in Detroit in 1960 and the National Con-
ference of Baptist Men in Memphis in 1962.
The band went to Japan in 1963 to participate in
the New Life Movement there. Other recent highlights
include a trip to the Grand Junction, Colorado,
rodeo in 1966 and the Dallas world premiere of
"The War Wagon" in 1967.
Band members marched in Washington in 1969
during President Richard Nixon's first inauguration.
In 1970 the "World Famous" Cowboy Band was
featured in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in
New York City.
We are confident that the Cowboy Band will have
many interesting and exciting engagements-both
near and far-in the next fifty years. The Cowboy
Band Foundation is undergirding the program of
the band in a wonderful way. All aboard for the
moon!!., t ,
"A music major now graduates with a broader
base of music knowledge and experience than ever
before. This is necessary in our present day because
of the very complex nature of music in our society
and the necessity for the musician to cope with it."
Another question that might be of interest to ex-
students is how products of H-SU School of Music
fare in graduate programs after leaving the Forty
Acres.
Dr. Dean says H-SU students do "outstanding"
work in other institutions. Another interesting fact to
Dr. Dean is the frequency with which students who
receive bachelor's degrees in music are interested in
remaining here to pursue master's degrees. "We have
not tried to make a large program because we em-
phasize quality rather than quantity. We are one of
the few institutions that still require a thesis of every
graduate student, regardless of his major," he said.
The graduate program at present offers majors
in theory and composition, music education and ap-
plied music literature. I)r. Andy J. Patterson is chair-
man of graduate studies for the School of Music.
The School of Music in 1937 had a faculty of
five and has grown to a faculty of 16.
The H-SU School of Music was the first in the
state to be accredited by the National Association of
Schools of Music. This was in 1930.
Dr. Jack Dean, the current chief of the School of
Music arrived on the scene in 1941. The music pro-
gram began to expand during the World War II
years. Following World War II, the music studies
"sorta exploded" and the choral and instrumental
programs were expanded.
The band program was enlarged and the quality
of the work was built up by private teachers in the
woodwinds and percussions.
Since those days immediately following World
War II, the leadership of the School of Music and
the faculty have brought the program to its excel-
lent position today.
One of the real contributions the program pro-
vides the community is the participation of faculty
and students alike in the Abilene Philharmonic.
The School of Music's finest hours have not ar-
rived, but a very sound foundation has been laid.
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Hardin-Simmons University. Range Rider, Volume 24, Number 1, January-February 1973, periodical, February 1973; Abilene, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117004/m1/2/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hardin-Simmons University Library.