The lyrics to the University of Missouri alma mater were penned in 1895 by an unknown author at a time when riverboats still roamed the wide Missouri River. Banjo clubs were fashionable on colleges campuses in those days, and Old Mizzou had its own amalgamated “Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin Club” as seen in its 1895 yearbook called the ` Savitar `(photo reproduced with permission from MU Archives). 
Several years ago, the health-related schools on campus inaugurated a gala fund raising dinner each Spring, and the BRC founder has been invited on each occasion to be the ceremonial song leader for the alma mater at the end of the evening. As per tradition, the dinner guests stand for the school song, and this year the BRC founder stepped to the microphone with a a banjo slung around his shoulder. He invoked the assembly to imagine that they were all together being ferried across the wide Missouri on board the paddle wheeler “J.W. Spencer” that operated in the Jefferson City area in 1895. 
The alma mater “Old Missouri” was sung to the strums of a riverboat banjo, and the crowd was all smiles at closure of the festive evening.
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