YES, I AM STILL HERE peeking out my window on Main Street, and today I address an important small town topic: School Songs.
It’s almost like the Holy Trinity of high school rivalries. Dierks. Murfreesboro. Mineral Springs. Three towns that know for sure that the best years are when their hometown football team whips their rivals.
The Dierks Outlaws and the Murfreesboro Rattlers have already played one leg of that three-part tradition. This year the Rattlers prevailed.
The Rattlers and the Mineral Springs Hornets will end the regular season with a Thursday night game, Nov. 6, and the week before that the Outlaws and Hornets collide in an all-Howard County match.
They’ve played many times, and many times the overall winner was also district champ. There have also been many upsets. Other teams have moved in and out of that conference but ‘our three’ have stuck.
One thing the teams, schools and fans have in common is that words to the school songs were written by students. I looked up the facts in an old article.
A Grand Old School
The late Jackie Simpson Dyer wrote the words to the Dierks song in 1945 or ‘46 during study hall. She told me she had heard other schools singing their songs, and decided that Dierks needed one, too. “We might have been little, but we were loud and we were the Outlaws,” she told me. She put the words to the music of a familiar tune, “Our Director,” which is a piece heard at all kinds of school functions.
Jackie told me that as they sing the song, the students and fans wave their right index finger for Number One.
Ever will we sing thy praises
Ever will we think of thee.
As a school of pleasant hours
And a school of pleasant memories
We love you dear old Dierks High School
We think you are supreme
Because you’re such a grand old school
We hold with high esteem.
Our Colors Mean Loyalty
The late Mary Jo Gentry Green and her friend, the late Glenette Sanders, went to a Future Homemakers of America state convention in 1947. Mary Jo told me that the delegates all stood and sang the FHA song which was to the tune of ‘Brahm’s Lullaby.”
The girls returned home determined to write a Mineral Springs school song. “The words just tumbled out,” She told me. The girls took it to the school’s legendary music teacher, Marjorie Copeland, who promoted it among the student body.
Students and fans often wave their arms in time to the music.
Dear Ole Mineral
How we love you
We will always be true.
Our colors green and gold
Mean loyalty to you.
Dear Ole Mineral
How we love you
As in days of our youth.
As we live, as we work
You will guide us in truth.
A Student’s Humble Love
This year on a Thursday night, rival teams from about 20 miles apart will play at Mineral Springs.
The Murfreesboro Rattlers have their own original school song. Both the words and the tune are original, according to the late Opal Cooley, a student at about the time the student body voted in 1939 to adopt the song by the late Welton Meeks and Betty Jean Callaway. Our John Balch dug up some of the song’s history for this newspaper.
The Murfreesboro school bookkeeper managed to save some official scrapbooks from a disastrous fire in 1997. Among the treasured papers was a copy of the student body’s vote to adopt the school song.
Students are supposed to stand a certain way, holding one hand behind their back and holding the other hand palm out. Sometime over the years the students added a ‘fang’ signal with two fingers at the end of the song.
A student’s humble love we bring
Our Alma Mater we will sing
We’ll love and cherish ‘til we die.
All glory to thee Murphy High.
For faith and hope and loyalty
Fond mem’ries that around thee cling
Our hearts are pledged to thee we sing
All glory to thee Murphy High.
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We’ll be faithful and true. I’ll write about the Nashville High School song at another time. Alma Mater is Nourishing Mother in Latin.
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HE SAID: “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” Plato, Greek philosoper
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SHE SAID: “Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible – the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.” Virginia Satir, American author and family therapist
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
