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.”