lead roceed ever on. Give the broad scan the Command land & On, triumphantly! Thy Is A true guarantee s in the end we ll see Thy standards

Transcription

1 Thyn Westmi valiantwill lead Thy c roceed ever on. scan the land & Give the broad Command Forever glorious, victorious Thy fight on! On, triumphantly! royalblue Is A true guarantee s That in the end we ll see Thy standards

2 nster on! Any Westminster student can rattle off the school colors and the famous Blue Jay mascot. Some can share traditions such as the freshman walk through The Columns and corresponding walk the other direction upon graduation. Others can even tell of the history of the school: Churchill s Iron Curtain speech delivered here in 1946 or the piece of the Berlin Wall found on campus. Few, however, can sing sing the Fight Song or the Alma Mater.

3 Today that situation is changing. Natasia Cain, Assistant Professor of Music, is making certain that the Fight Song will once again be sung in the halls of Westminster College. Last spring Cain and the Blue Jay Glee Club began singing Westminster s Alma Mater and this year she revived the Fight Song, On, Westminster, On, at the President s Dinner last October. Cain, who recently celebrated her first full year at Westminster, was surprised that Westminster was unaware of the fight song. On, Westminster, On, according to Cain, is well-written in terms of text and music, and she wanted to revive the song because a college with a tradition as strong as Westminster s needs a fight song. Cain is no stranger to feeling the strong tradition of Westminster. Her grandfather, Jean Sexton, was a graduate of Westminster. He was also an All-American football player, regularly appearing on the field at Blue Jay games during the 1920s. At the time her grandfather was playing football at Westminster, there was no real Fight Song merely an Alma Mater sung to the tune of America: Westminster, tis of thee, Fountain of jollity, Of thee we sing; Let streams of friendship glide, Send forth a joyous tide, From every mountain side Let laughter ring. On, Westminster, On was written in the early 1930s by a professor and alum of Westminster, Robert F. Karsch, to capture the spirit and tradition of Westminster. It s neat, Cain explains, to think that [my grandfather] would have in a small way contributed to the sense of pride that was felt for the college when Karsch was inspired to write the Fight Song! The text captures one of the most important symbols of the college The Columns as it declares thy columns scan the land, and give the broad command! Cain says, explaining how The Columns at Westminster already stood for tradition and pride, even when Karsch wrote the song nearly eight decades ago. She hopes that this revival will remind current students what it meant and what it still means to be a part of the Westminster institution. But who was Robert Karsch and what about his character made him the right person to capture the spirit of Westminster in song? Karsch s history with Westminster is rich and spans many decades. He left a legacy that can be seen in many aspects of Westminster s history. He attended Westminster as an undergrad from 1928 through 1932, graduating with a BA. Upon graduation, he wrote the Alma Mater, personifying his own feelings about Westminster into song. Using lyrics written by N.W. Sharpe which first appeared in the Blue Jay Yearbook in 1909, Karsch wrote original music for the Alma Mater, which had, up until Karsch came to campus, been sung to the tune of Annie Lisle. Annie Lisle is a popular tune used for fight songs by many universities, including the University of Missouri in their Alma Mater, Old Missouri. After writing the Fight Song in the 1930s, he moved on to Vanderbilt where he received his doctorate in But, despite two years away from Westminster, the tradition and the pride of the school seemed to call him back. 14 Leadership WINTER 2011

4 After finishing at Vanderbilt, Karsch returned to Westminster, instructing students in government as a member of the History Department. He taught history until 1938 when he began to teach politics and political economics in the History and Economics department. It was during WWII that Karsch left another of his largest impacts on Westminster. Realizing that history and government were very different subjects, Karsch founded the Department of Government in 1942 and 1943, which later became the modern day Department of Political Science. In 1945, as Missouri voters called for a new constitution in the State of Missouri, Karsch used his intellect in the field of political science to become the principal author of the 1945 Missouri Constitution, which is still used by the state of Missouri today. While he was busy teaching history at Westminster and participating in Missouri politics, he still found a way to express his love for music. He became the director of the Westminster Glee Club in As the director of the Glee Club, Karsch oversaw some of the most revered times of the club. In 1935, Karsch s Glee Club partnered with the Glee Club of William Woods University to perform in Swope Chapel as part of the Christmas Vespers program. Karsch was instrumental in continuing the tradition of pairing the two colleges of Fulton each year and uniting them in song for many consecutive years. Karsch toured all over the state of Missouri with the Westminster Glee Club, performing in Columbia, Jefferson City, Kansas City, St. Louis and St. Joseph and even further. In 1940, during its 35 th concert season, Karsch took the Glee Club on a 3,000 mile tour across the southwest United States, On, Westminster, On was written in the early 1930s by a professor and alum of Westminster, Robert F. Karsch. playing in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. The highlight of the trip was an impromptu performance in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, where the songs of Robert Karsch and the tradition of Westminster were sung against the cavernous and sandy backdrop of southern New Mexico. Through extensive touring and radio performances with the Glee Club, Karsch brought much recognition to the school. His Glee Club was so successful that it was used by recruiters to bring prospective students to Westminster from across the world. However, Karsch s musical legacy at Westminster doesn t stop with the Glee Club. In September of 1936, Karsch began to reestablish a school band, as a lapse in interest had prevented the school from having one for several years. Karsch called together anyone and everyone who could play an instrument and had a desire to perform with others. They began playing as a collective entity, a true school band. Throughout 1936 and 1937, the band began appearing at Blue Jay basketball games. It was during this time as the band director and director of the Glee Club that Karsch began playing On, Westminster, On and the Alma Mater. Throughout the late 1930s and 1940s, it was hard to miss Karsch s impact on Westminster. It makes 15

5 sense that a man so engrained into the spirit of Westminster would be responsible for writing two of the songs that personify the Westminster tradition the best. Karsch was able to so profoundly impact Westminster in a few short years, that by 1946 it only seemed natural that he would leave Westminster behind to bring his brilliance and skill to another school. In 1946 he spent his his last semester at Westminster, having earned his PhD at the University of Missouri that year and left Westminster to be the chair of the University of Missouri s Political Science Department. While he was at MU, he wrote a shaping and decisive book called Government in Missouri which was published in 1955 and chronicled the history of politics and Government in the State of Missouri. And, of course, a school that Karsch was involved with would not have been the same without a fight song written by Karsch. In 1959, the University of Missouri held a campus-wide competition to choose a new fight song. It was during this competition that Karsch wrote Fight Tiger and won. Fight Tiger is the song he is best known for, and one of his seminal achievements. It seems that whichever school Karsch was a part of needed a true Karsch tune to reflect the spirit of the student body. Karsch continued as a faculty member of the University of Missouri until his retirement in the early 1980s. In 1985, Karsch returned to Westminster again to appear at the sesquicentennial celebration held in conjunction with Westminster Sunday for the Fulton First Presbyterian Church. Being the accomplished organist he was, he performed during the mass, which was given by Dr. George E. Sweazey, son of the long-time Dean of Westminster. Karsch passed away in November of But even in death, Karsch is not forgotten. men in the Glee Club have really The enjoyed learning these pieces and they enjoyed performing On, Westminster, On at the President s Dinner, Cain said of the revival she has orchestrated. This is a special endeavor for me in personal ways, too, Cain said, as it is important to note that her grandfather, in addition to playing football, was also a member of the Glee Club in the 1920s. Sexton was responsible for embodying the Westminster tradition that later inspired Karsch to write On, Westminster, On and the Alma Mater. Karsch s legacy is clear across the campus of Westminster, and, in fact, across Central Missouri. Cain s resurrection of On Westminster, On presents the school spirit and tradition that he embodied to a new generation of Westminster students. Cain uses Karsch s songs to teach a new generation of Westminster students and faculty about the pride her grandfather felt in his school, a pride that has stood strong for generations, much like The Columns. And in that spirit, Cain will give Karsch s broad command to all Westminster students to let that sense of pride and tradition live on for many more generations. Leadership Web Bonus: View the Westminster Choir singing the Alma Mater and Fight Song: 16 Leadership WINTER 2011