Before Sing Song directors stressed diction and dynamics. Before students spat off funny lyrics, popped choreography and incorporated props, and even before Moody Coliseum was built. Sing Song was an idea of an ACU senior from San Mateo, Calif.

Bob Hunter, the District 71 representative from 1986- 2006 and ACU’s Jack of all Trades, was the vice president of the student body in 1952 and proposed a campus-wide singing competition to the Dean of Students Garvin Beauchamp.

“We were known as the singing college, and the 1950 football team went everywhere singing, everybody was astounded in locker rooms and across the nation and sports editors would say, ‘Man they do a great acappella chorus,'” Hunter said. “So I just suggested to the dean of students that it would be great for us that year, my senior year, to have a big Sing Song where all the classes and clubs could sing together.”

But despite Hunter’s resilience, it didn’t quite happen how he envisioned it. He said there wasn’t a faculty position to oversee the competition and instead of a campus-wide competition, there was a men’s quartet competition. Sing Song, as we know it today, did not come to fruition until Feb. 14, 1957.

Hunter returned to ACU in the fall of 1956 after a stint in the Navy and was handed the title of Director of Special Events by President Don H. Morris. With someone to run the show, one of his first moves on the new job was organizing the first Sing Song.

“I never dreamed I would come back to ACU, and the president Don Morris came to Washington and asked me to return to ACU instead of the West Coast where I grew up,” Hunter said.

During the time of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the George W. Bush generation probably wouldn’t recognize the first Sing Song if they saw it.

It truly was a campuswide event, with representatives from the French club to the social clubs, in the now abandoned Sewell Auditorium. Tickets were only $1 and all the proceeds went to various campus projects and groups. The show sold out. All the groups competed against each other, sang only one song, and choreography was non-existent.

Bill Teague, then the assistant to the president, was the host and wore a different hat every time he came on stage.

The show was a success, and soon Hunter’s brainchild grew larger and larger every year.

“The reason the Sing Song was so successful was because we sponsored it through the Alumni Association, and the parents, alumni and friends wanted to come back for it,” Hunter said.

“And as Sing Song grew more and more, people wanted to come back.”

And though the time, place and songs change, one thing remains: For one weekend in February, Sing Song unites this campus.

Though the initial meaning sometimes gets lost in the competition and rivalries forged between clubs and classes, Sing Song emotes each and every part of this university.

This weekend this campus smiles, stresses and sings. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.