Southwestern Adventist University was founded less than twenty years after the first Seventh-day Adventist arrived in Texas in 1875. In 1878, the Texas Conference organized with a membership of 200 in four churches, and, in 1884, two years after the founding of Battle Creek College in Michigan, a school of 50 was opened in Granbury, Texas.

Although other schools started in the state in the next nine years, in 1893 the Texas Conference voted to establish a central school at Keene. When it was announced that year that the school would be opening, most of the Adventist families in the state moved into the area so that their children could attend the school, some at first living only in tents. They started arriving in the spring of 1893 and by the time the school opened in January 1894, a sizeable new community of Adventists existed in what at that time was considered a "wild, barren place."¹

By the end of its first year, the school was named Keene Industrial Academy, a place where practical skills would be taught. Faculty members were also expected to have mechanical or industrial skills.

Even with this emphasis on practical skills, by the turn of the century, music courses were listed in a promotional flyer. The 1901 graduation class included twelve music graduates, four in Classical Music and ten in the Sacred Music course, with two students completing both programs.²

Carrie Hill Hobbs, music teacher from 1898 to 1900, had come to KIA from Walla Walla College. In her four years at WWC, she had organized a music program and courses of study and in her brief two-year stay at KIA started a similar program. Hobbs, a singer as well as a pianoforte player, was an 1890 Bachelor of Music graduate from a music conservatory in Ottawa, Kansas.³ Other music teachers in the first decade of the 20^th century included Loren Lickey, a violinist, and Grace D. Taylor, a singer.

By 1905, the music department claimed a $1,000 inventory of music instruments and at the end of the 1905-1906 school year, five of the college's seven graduates were in music.⁴

In the 1911-1912 school year a presentation of the Queen Esther Cantata, with a cast of 75, was given to the largest crowd ever to gather in the church. In the following year The Resurrection, another cantata, was performed with soloists and a chorus of fifty.⁵

Also, in that second decade, an "orchestra" of ten was formed with an instrumentation of three violins, a cello, three guitars, a mandolin, an autoharp, and a mellophone. A concert band of fifteen to twenty performed occasionally for assemblies and presented concerts outside for free, or in the chapel for a charge of 10c for admission.⁶

In 1916, the school was renamed Southwestern Junior College. In the remaining years of the decade, a building campaign led to a number of changes and additions to the campus, including construction of a house called "a conservatory of music." This two-story wood structure had studios, six practice rooms, and a large classroom and by the beginning of the 1920s was equipped with seven pianos and two organs.⁷ Practice rooms opened a little after five in the morning and closed a few minutes before dormitory lights were turned out in the evening.⁸

On at least one occasion in the 1918 school year, the Saturday evening program, hosted by the president and his wife, featured the playing on a victrola of The Stars and Stripes Forever, The Lost Chord, and other favorite records of the time.⁹

In 1920, Katherine Sierkie Hanhardt, who had been teaching at Union College, began teaching voice and directing the choirs at SJC. Born in Prussia, she had become an Adventist while a student at the prestigious Sorbonne in Paris and had subsequently completed a music degree at a conservatory of music in Germany. In 1909 she had been asked by the General Conference to teach voice at Pacific Union College, formerly Healdsburg College, which was starting its first year in Angwin, California.

Following a move to UC to teach music in 1912, she met and married Wesley Hanhardt, an Adventist minister located in Kansas. When he transferred to Texas and they settled near SWJC, she joined the staff at the college. In the next five years Hanhardt, who became known as the "sweet singer of SWJC,"¹⁰ taught on campus and assisted in her husband's evangelistic efforts in the summers, leaving the area when he became Home Missions director and they moved to San Antonio.¹¹

During Hanhardt's years and into the 1930s, a band of around 18 to 20 members, known at different times as the Keene Concert Band and the Bandoliers, flourished under the leadership of Walter Straw and Julian L. Thompson, teachers in other areas who also played cornet; Claude Dortch; and others. These popular ensembles were mostly brass groups with a bass and snare drummer.¹²

Hannum, a gifted performer who in his lifetime would become one of the church's most influential organists and musicians, left at the end of that year to teach at Washington Missionary College, now Columbia Union College.¹³ His successor, Doris Holt, later Haussler, benefited from a campaign by the students during her first year that replaced the dilapidated piano in the chapel with a new grand piano.¹⁴

Clarence W. Dortch, a choir director and pianist, became head of the music department in 1926. An experienced teacher, he had taught in two academies and, most recently, at Pacific Union College for six years. For the next sixteen years he directed the choirs and chaired the department, a record tenure in music chairmanship that still stands.

By the fall of 1928, the music program was providing lessons to 28 voice, 47 piano, and 5 violin students, the latter being taught by Zachary, who had graduated, and the dean of men, Elihu Ryden. Both would serve in the late 1920s as directors of an orchestra of about thirty members. During this time college choral groups had large numbers of participants and performed often.¹⁵

And, as always on college campuses through the years, there were other unofficial student music activities. A cappella gospel-singing male quartets were popular in this region and on the campus all through the 1920s.

One of these quartets, The Lone Star Four, formed in 1928 at the college. This group, chosen eight years later by H.M.S. Richards to assist in his pioneering radio evangelism broadcast, The Voice of Prophecy, became the nucleus for the program's famous King's Heralds quartet. The success of that SWJC quartet was a source of pride to the campus and, through the professional broadcast quartet they spawned, an inspiration for quartets on Adventist school campuses for the next half-century.¹⁶

Yet another student group that captured the fancy of the students and probably aroused concern within the faculty was a "Roaring Twenties" style ensemble, The Silver Shadows. In a classic photograph from the turn of the decade seven men in tuxedos, with two violins and a trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, and singing megaphone, are grouped admiringly around a seated young lady with a banjo held in playing position.¹⁷

While the 1928-1929 school year was a banner year for enrollment as well as for music activity, the crash in the stock market in October 1929 led to a decline in enrollment and increasing debt in the 1930s. In January 1933, the college faculty and staff voted unanimously to work for a subsistence wage, regardless of training, experience, or position.

By the fall of 1935, enrollment was just 222 students, significantly down from the enrollment seven years earlier, and there were only 13 teachers and administrators. However, the situation began improving and a turnaround had started at the school by the end of the 1930s.¹⁸

Evidence of the improving situation was the school's acquisition of a Hammond Electric Organ, in March 1939. Its purchase was the result of persistent efforts on the part of many in a campaign that had spanned those difficult years.¹⁹

The entry of the United States into World War II in December 1941 had a sobering affect on the school when during the rest of that school year its young men registered for the draft and began leaving to serve in the armed forces. The school year ended with yet another loss, when Dortch decided to accept an offer to teach at Southern Junior College, now Southern Adventist University.

The war years were difficult on campus, with concerns about students who were fighting in the conflict and unsettling news at times from the frontlines, lower than usual enrollments, and restrictions on travel and food. The ratio of men to women dropped dramatically during these years, the school paper describing the predicament as a "dearth of older boys."²¹

By the end of the 1945-46 school year, a new gymnasium/auditorium was under construction, but more importantly, the college was fully accredited as a junior college. Thirteen students graduated at commencement that spring with two-year degrees.²²

Because of the situation nationally and on campus during the war years, music played an important role in maintaining morale. Sacred music in church and chapels had more than the usual meaning, while patriotic music and concerts were particularly popular.

The postwar years started with a dramatic turnover in music teachers. When students returned in the fall of 1945, Colin and Ruth Fisher had been hired, he to lead the department and conduct the orchestra, and she to teach voice and direct the choirs on a part-time basis. Rugg, the only holdover from the war years, assisted by teaching voice, and Helen Putnam taught piano. A year later, H. Allen Craw, a war veteran who had just completed a music degree at Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University, was hired to teach piano. The Fishers and Craw worked together for the next four years.

While other Adventist colleges had significant jumps in enrollment with the return of war veterans, the increase was more measured at SWJC due to its junior college status. Even so, the return of the men was immediately evident in all the ensembles and, by the beginning of the 1950s enrollment had risen to about 400.

In 1953, Wilbur Schram, a versatile musician who had been the chair of the Union College music department for the past four years, and his wife, Vivian, an art teacher, were invited to teach at SWJC. For the next fourteen years, he served as organist and chair of the fine arts department. He also led the band for fifteen years and in his first year on campus led a successful campaign to raise money for band uniforms.

A new women's dormitory had been completed and the old dormitory designated as the new home for music, art, and speech just as the Schrams and McManamans arrived.²³ They set about to transform the building into a functional facility, one that would serve as home for music for the next three decades.

The work of Craw, Christensen, and Doering in the postwar era laid the foundation for building a strong keyboard area. Their work was continued through the 1950s and into the 1960s with the teaching of Schram, June McManaman, Anne Lambert, Shirley Beary, and Vinson Bushnell. Clarence Dortch, who had retired and settled in the area, returned to teach organ and piano for two years from 1956 to 1958.

The tradition in choral excellence established during the long tenure of Dortch in the 1920s and 1930s continued through the 1950s and into the opening years of the 1960s under the leadership of McManaman and his successors, Harold Lickey, a former member of the Faith for Today quartet, and Paul Hill. All three men were dynamic leaders with definite convictions about sacred choral music who wielded considerable influence while at the college and in later positions.

Yet another extended tenure in choral leadership started in 1962, when John Read became director of the choral groups. Like his predecessors, Read was interested in promoting good music and upholding high standards in performance. Changes in the college's status and student body during his years would facilitate an even higher performance level for the choirs.

When Schram had retired in 1968, Jack McClarty was hired to direct the band and instrumental program and teach music education classes. Within two years, McClarty, an experienced teacher with a dynamic personality who had just completed a doctorate at the University of Montana, was presiding over a band program with two groups. The concert band of 65, largest band ever at the college, and a select group of 30 called The Collegians, chosen from the larger group, were popular ensembles that performed often.

Read left in 1980, two years after White's departure. His successor, Randel Wagner, was a graduate of Walla Walla College who had completed a master's degree at San Diego State University. An earlier national finalist in the NATS Singer of the Year Competition, Wagner was an accomplished singer and conductor who inspired the students.

While there had been orchestras from the earliest days of the college, for the most part they were ad hoc ensembles formed when players were available, and as needed for presenting cantatas and annual performances of the Messiah. This practice changed when Mugur Doroftei moved to the area in 1981.

During the 1970s the music program flourished, having as many as 23 music education majors. Near the end of that decade, however, the number of music majors dropped dramatically, when the need for academy music teachers decreased because of cutbacks in Adventist school music programs nationwide. Also, a decline in Adventist college and university enrollments and a corresponding loss of income led to program cuts in Adventist higher education across the country.

Larry Otto, who had directed choirs in two academies and at Columbia Union and Southern Adventist colleges, became choir director and chair of the fine arts department that summer, the only full-time teacher in music. Ann Robinson, a former student of Bromme, was hired to be artist in residence and piano and organ instructor on an adjunct basis, and Ron Johnson directed the college band.

In Otto's first year, a new Fine Arts building that had been in the planning stages was constructed. The 1.3 million-dollar structure, named for its principal donors, John and Lottie Mabee, houses both English and music. It includes two rehearsal areas, seven practice rooms, seven teaching studios, and offices. The recital hall, named for Roy and Grace Wharton, has seating for 180 and includes a grand piano and a three-manual Johannus electronic organ.

In his role as department chair, Otto attempted to make the best of the change in status for the department by starting a Ministry of Music program in his second year, a religion degree with special courses in music. Another initiative was the launching of a two-year recording studio program to prepare students for a career in that area. Even though a $40,000 Josephine J. Roberts Recording Studio was established in Mabee Center to facilitate the program, it, as well as the ministry of music offering failed to attract enough students and ended when Otto left in 1991 to work for Ogden Music.

David Anavitarte, a choir director and pianist who had previously taught at Adelphian and San Diego academies, succeeded Otto. In addition to his primary identity as a conductor, he is also a singer who accompanies himself on piano in an improvisational style.

In March 1993, Anderson, in his role as chair, led out with his colleagues, Anavitarte and Doroftei, in launching the school's year-long centennial celebration with a gala concert at the prestigious Morton Meyerson Symphony Center in nearby Dallas. The program, which featured the College Band, Mizpah Choraliers, and Keene Camerata, was a memorable and festive evening for the capacity audience and the nearly 150 students in the groups.

In 1997, Anavitarte formed the University Singers, a select group of 20 to 30 singers, and Asaph, a male chorus of 16, to complement the larger 100-member traditional choir, Mizpah Choraliers. In both of the mixed choirs he has presented masterpieces in choral literature such as the Elijah, the Mozart and Rutter Requiems, and other choral masterpieces.

One of the school's first acts in 1994, the opening year of its second century, was to rename itself Southwestern Adventist University. Within the first decade of claiming its new identity, a four-year music degree program was reinstated at the president's request.

Despite the uncertainty in the music department at times in the last two decades, the present university administration and music chair Anavitarte and his colleagues are determined to develop a comprehensive music education program with depth at SWAU and, as soon as feasible, will be applying for accreditation with the National Association of Schools of Music.