“There’s something magical about collaborating with other musicians,” says AnaBelle Elliott, a Texas State student who sings and plays piano with multiple bands, including Bobcat Country. “It’s a way to share culture, which can be difficult to do outside of the context of music.”
The Hills are Alive
From Schubert to Straight, student music groups have long provided a soundtrack for Bobcat life
Bonding through song is a rich tradition at TXST, one with humble beginnings that has grown through the years along with the student body. Southwest Texas State Normal School didn’t have a music department or degree program when it first opened its doors in 1903. Nonetheless, self-motivated faculty and students quickly made musical performance an essential source of connection and pride at the “little school on the hill.”
The two earliest ensembles were the Mendelssohn and Schubert vocal clubs, both named after German composers as a nod to the German heritage that much of the campus community shared in the school’s first decades. While the Schubert Club was exclusively for women, the Mendelssohn Club was co-ed, with one of the earliest members being J. Garland Flowers, who later served as president of Southwest Texas State Teacher College for 22 years. As a sign of unity and patriotism, the two groups combined to form The Liberty Chorus during World War I.
The 1920s and ’30s gave rise to new ensembles like the Ukelele Ladies Club, which performed original songs at school functions. The Men’s Glee Club recruited singers with “at least moderately good voices”—as described in a 1922 edition of The Normal College Bulletin—and sang classics of the day. The College Serenaders, a small combo of saxophone players, played campus social gatherings and even toured across Texas.
The college added a bachelor of music degree in 1937 and, a short time later, opened a music hall where the Taylor-Murphy History building stands today. Increased interest from both incoming and returning students led to a new wave of student music groups.
The Little Symphony string ensemble began performing biannual concerts for the school in 1938, leading to the formation of offshoot groups like The Stage Band in 1952. Similarly, another non-traditional student band called The Starlighters gained popularity in the mid-1950s, performing hits for student dances. The 1954 Pedagog yearbook credited the band for playing “with lots of oomph.”
Around the same time, The Bobcat Marching Band reached new heights. Originally formed in 1919 with just 22 students sharing 11 instruments, by the 1960s the marching band featured nearly 100 members. It earned the nickname “the pride of the Hill Country” and performed nationwide, including for the 1965 presidential inauguration of famed TXST alum Lyndon B. Johnson.
The music department in the 1960s began to prioritize the “training up of teachers for public schools,” according to the 1966 Pedagog. While earlier a cappella clubs required auditions, groups like The College Chorus, originally formed in the late 1940s, began welcoming newcomers to develop their vocal skills.
By the 1960s, The Stage Band began to reflect the “psychedelic era of its day,” according to the Pedagog, as its performances would feature dark undertones contrasted with bright, colorful lighting designs.
Also in the 1960s and ’70s, The Stage Band shifted its focus from strictly classical music to embrace elements of rock, using amplifiers and distortion in their performances. By 1975, a subgroup of The Stage Band called The Jazz-Rock Ensemble made waves by performing songs by artists like soul singer Aretha Franklin. In this same era, the School of Music broadened its reach, opening elective courses to all students and adding new genres of study such as Latin music and the blues.
Near the start of the new millennium, student ensembles turned their focus to celebratory causes. In the 1990s, a growing interest in mariachi music prompted students to establish the school’s first mariachi ensemble, Mariachi de SWT.
Today, the Latin music studies program is home to two mariachi ensembles and two salsa bands that perform for school functions and community events. In the same time frame, The Centennial Singers (now known as VocaLibre) formed in honor of the university’s 100-year anniversary, celebrating the achievements and traditions of Texas State.
Today, new student ensembles such as Bobcat Country, which formed in 2022, continue to grow the university’s musical spectrum even further. Bobcat Country focuses on preserving country and western music and provides opportunities for students of all backgrounds to learn and perform classic tunes with vocalists and a full band, including fiddle and pedal steel guitar.
“Getting to merge my love of playing music with my love of listening to country by playing country music with other people is a special privilege,” Elliott says.
TXST Artists on the Big Stage
Texas State University has produced a long list of performers and artists who’ve gone on to storied careers. Here's a small sampling:
- Sunny Sweeney, ’01, has released five country albums and been nominated for vocalist of the year by both the Academy of Country Music and Texas Country Music Association. (Pictured, first from left.)
- Randy Rogers, ’01, leads the Randy Rogers Band, which has released 11 studio albums since its formation in 2000, including numerous singles on the country charts. (Pictured, second from left.)
- Wayne Oquin, ’99, a TXST Distinguished Alum, composes orchestral music that’s performed by symphonies around the world.
- James E. Polk, ’91, earned a master’s degree at TXST while building a career as a jazz composer, multi-instrumentalist, and musical collaborator with Ray Charles.
- Debra Davis, ’82, won an Emmy for her NBC broadcast production of the 1996 Olympics and a Grammy nomination for the live production of rapper Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 “Big Steppers” tour in Paris.
- Emilio Navaira was a TXST music major before departing in 1982 to pursue a performing career that led to Tejano stardom, including winning a Grammy and a Latin Grammy.
- George Strait, ’79, cut his teeth in San Marcos clubs en route to becoming the “King of Country Music.” (Pictured, third from left.)
- Ponce Cruse, aka Heloise, ’74, majored in business education but found her niche as a lifestyle writer with “Hints from Heloise,” a column syndicated in hundreds of newspapers. (Pictured, fourth from left.)
- Thomas Carter, ’74, created an African American theater troupe at TXST before launching an acclaimed career in TV and film, including as director of “Coach Carter.”
- Powers Booth, ’70, delivered an Emmy Award-winning career on stage and screen with credits including the Broadway production Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones and movies such as Tombstone.
- Chelcie Ross, ’64, an English major, enjoyed a wide-ranging acting career with credits including “Everybody Loves Raymond,” Basic Instinct, and Hoosiers.
- Tómas Rivera, ’58, made his career as a university professor and administrator, but he also rose to prominence as a writer of short stories and novels and was known as the “dean of Mexican American literature.” (Pictured, fifth from left.)
- Charles Barsotti, ’55, was an art major who combined artistic skill and a sharp wit to become one of the nation’s leading cartoonists, including publishing 1,400 cartoons in The New Yorker.