One of the more famous Bacone alumni was Jack Kilpatrick, a Cherokee, who graduated from Bacone Junior College in 1935. Kilpatrick was a member of the men’s vocal ensemble the Singing Redmen and he was Editor-in-Chief of the student newspaper, the Bacone Indian. After graduating from Bacone, Kilpatrick attended the University of Redlands in California before returning to Oklahoma, where in the 1930s he worked with the Works Progress Administration. He was an excellent pianist and composer, who composed such noteworthy works as “The Cherokee Suite”.

In 1940, when Benjamin Weeks was President of Bacone, Kilpatrick wrote Weeks a letter in which he described the impact that the college had on his life. The Bacone Indian published the letter in November, 1941. “I have been called an Indian composer,” Kilpatrick wrote, “dealing with the folk music of a race that is, according to popular belief, essentially pagan; yet my music has been described as having a persistent Christian undertone. Is there a deep and complete contradiction in that?” Not for a Bacone alumnus. Students, such as Indians, sometimes come to Bacone feeling inferior, but leave it changed, with a new sense of the value of themselves and their heritage. “Bacone taught them that Indians were a peculiar people, bearing strange but beautiful gifts, and that in whatsoever is lovely and of good report . . . no race has a more precious heritage. Bacone taught them that talent, intelligence, and character know no racial divisions. . . . Bacone taught them to hold fast to that which was good in their own culture.”

“In moments of discouragement and deep anxiety,” Kilpatrick continued, “I have recalled to mind the singing of the birds in the quiet groves of Bacone. I have brought back also the scene of the winking lights in the valley shining up through the fog of twilight at my vantage point on Bacone’s hill top. If here, indeed, was not peace, I do not know the meaning of the word: not mere cessation of physical activity, but a mood founded on the only sure Rock that we know.” Kilpatrick concluded, “I think that this resolves the question of why I write the type of music I do. I think this will make one understand why a student does not usually go to Bacone but that he takes it with him forever.”

For more on Kilpatrick and Bacone College, see my book, Marking the Jesus Road: Bacone College through the Ages, found at Marking the Jesus Road: Bacone College through the Years: Lawson, Dr. Russell Matthew: 9780977244805: Amazon.com: Books