Dr. F. Lee Bowling, Kappa Kappa Psi Grand National President (Alpha Iota) from 1941-1947, is regarded as the “Founder of the National Intercollegiate Band.” The NIB was Bowling’s cherished idea and through the years he worked to develop a plan that firmly established the organization as a national service project for the Fraternity and Sorority.
Bowling had placed his belief in such an organization on the results of the intercollegiate band which had been held since 1933 by the colleges and universities of the Rocky Mountain area. Each college sent representatives to a chosen place where much time and effort was given to the preparation of a concert. These concerts were sponsored by the chapters of Kappa Kappa Psi. The success of this movement gained headway to some extent before WWII and district intercollegiate band concerts were held in the states of Oklahoma and Ohio.
He presented such a plan to the Tenth National Convention at Corvallis, Oregon, in August, 1941. It received the endorsement of the convention and a promise was made to have the first National Intercollegiate Band at the next National Convention. However, due to the Declaration of War and subsequent changes in the nation, the National Conventions scheduled for 1943 and 1945 were not held. In fact, ninety percent of all fraternity chapters became inactive and only five chapters were able to remain active throughout this period.
After the close of the war, Bowling revived his plans and started to build an intercollegiate band which would perform as part of the 14th Biennial Convention in 1947 at Oklahoma A&M College (now Oklahoma State University) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The first NIB featured 125 select student musicians from more than sixteen colleges. The program from this concert featured eleven musical selections and ten different conductors – including Bowling, Charles Wiley, Hugh E. McMillen, J. Lee Burke, William A. Scroggs, and Dr. Bohumil Makovsky. The concert opened with John Philip Sousa’s famous march, Semper Fidelis (“Always Faithful”).
In the words of Dr. Bowling:
“The 1947 National Intercollegiate Band had been in the planning stages for many years. Actually, the prototype of this national venture had been well established. This was the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Band which rendered the first concert by an intercollegiate band in Macky Auditorium at the University of Colorado in February, 1933. The Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Band gave five concerts in Colorado in 1933 and represented six colleges – the University of Colorado, University of Denver, Colorado College, University of Northern Colorado, Colorado State University, and Colorado School of Mines. These Intercollegiate Bands continued as a great musical experience during the spring terms, the last concert being given during Music Week each year in the Denver Auditorium with a KOA broadcast. The University of Utah was also represented at the Music Week concert in 1933. The University of Wyoming became a regular participant in 1934. The first concert following the interruption caused by World War II was at the University of Northern Colorado. During the postwar years District Intercollegiate Bands have played an important role at a few district confabs.”
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Dr. Bowling’s patient, competent, and concerned guidance also secured for the Sorority its inclusion in Kappa Kappa Psi’s national program of service to bands. The National Convention of 1947 was the first convention that established mutual cooperation and shared concerns between the Fraternity and the Sorority. The Kappa Kappa Psi delegates voted to accept Tau Beta Sigma as a sister organization, and extended in perpetuity to the new Sorority the courtesy of sharing in all of its publications and in the NIB program.
The National Intercollegiate Band has been an integral part of the Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma National Convention since 1947. The amount of participants in 1949 allowed for the formation of two bands, the National Intercollegiate Symphonic Band and the National Intercollegiate Concert Band. In 1991, a new convention format was designed to provide the NIB with a more concentrated rehearsal schedule. Today, the National Intercollegiate Band concert opens the business portion of each National Convention. |
