When I read the article about Dr. Wilfred C. Bain and Frank McKinley in the spring issue of The North Texan, I realized that your readers need to know about the World War II years.
Dr. Bain did indeed promote the idea of a choir touring the state, but he himself was the choir conductor at that time. I know because I was a member of the A Cappella Choir.
In order to obtain transportation, we sang for military installations and gave civilian concerts nearby. What a great time that was!

Rowena Turney Taliaferro ('46, '49 M.M.Ed.)
Arlington
 
I came to North Texas as a junior transfer into the music school in 1941 because I was attracted by the A Cappella Choir and what Wilfred Bain was doing for music in Denton.
 
Dr. Bain must have come to North Texas in 1938, and he promptly established the choir as both an instrument for great music and for promotion of the department he hoped to build.
 
There were, in 1940 and a number of following years, two choirs in the department. The Chapel Choir was the feeding group for the piece de resistance, the A Cappella Choir. In 1940-41, Frank McKinley conducted the Chapel Choir and Bain conducted the A Cappella group.
 
As a middling quality tenor, I was first assigned to the Chapel Choir, and Frank McKinley was my voice teacher. By my second semester in the program, I was invited to the A Cappella Choir, and I then toured with them in the spring of 1942 and 1942-43. For all of us vocalists in the budding program, it was a wonderful, wonderful time.
 
The Department of Music had, I think, only four members when Bain arrived and, of those, only Floyd Graham and Mary Anderson survived. Roy Will, Helen Hewitt, Walter Hodgson, Gene Hall, Lloyd Hibberd, Willard Elliot, Silvio Scionti, Myron Taylor, Mary McCormack and all the others followed. Denton, Texas and the Southwest were then changed forever. They were glorious days.
 
Carter Murphy (’46)
Professor Emeritus of economics, SMU, Dallas
 
 
Thank you for the excellent copy of The North Texan (spring 2011). I would like to comment on the article “Music Beginnings.”
Frank McKinley did have those wonderful 30 years directing the A Cappella Choir. I had the privilege of singing under him in the Bach Choir in the 1947-48 school year. The Yucca for 1948 first includes him as director of the A Cappella Choir.
I enrolled at UNT in 1944 and came with the specific aim of singing in the A Cappella Choir under Dr. Wilfred C. Bain.
It was already a well- known touring group. The 1945 Yucca states that the organization had existed and toured for six years under Dr. Bain.
I auditioned and did sing in the bass section. It was when Dr. Bain resigned to go to Indiana University that McKinley became director.
I am glad to have the yearbooks and not to have to just rely on my memory of those wonderful years in the 1940s. Thank you for prompting my enjoyment of reliving those happy days.
 
Jesse Hensarling ('48)
Allen