Stories

The singing school created a unique summer experience for the community of Sabinal, Texas. For fifty weeks each year the campus of the Texas Normal Singing School was closed and quiet. Then suddenly in the month of June every Greyhound Bus passing through town brought teen-aged boys to the community. On the second Sunday in June the Sabinal Church of Christ had a completely full auditorium with its own members and the student body of the singing school.

Sunday afternoon was time for student registration for the school. They took pre-tests and received counseling for class schedules. On Sunday night the students attended a special evening service at the church across the street. The local church hosted a Sunday night singing in honor of the singing school. Singing school teachers and some advanced students led the singing.

On Monday morning the classes began. For two weeks these students would master the subjects of music theory, harmony, sight reading, voice, and song leading. From 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM they would apply themselves to their studies. Then, at 4:00 PM the students were given free time. These teen-agers were ready to look for some adventures in their host community. When classes were dismissed all the students headed for Main Street. Their favorite place to visit was the Corner Drug Store because it had a large ice cream confectionery. Younger boys would wander up and down the main street of that town visiting the dime store and other businesses. They walked up and down the railroad tracks and sometimes explored old abandoned buildings. Older boys would go looking for girls.

Each night the school hosted a public singing that was directed by the students of the singing school. Many people from the community would attend that nightly singing – especially the local teen-age girls. The first night of the school the local girls would sit at the back of the auditorium and watch the boys lead singing. By the second night many of them were sitting among the students sharing a song book with a teen-aged song leader. Many singing school boys and Sabinal girls developed romantic relationships every summer.

Sometimes local drug stores and cafes would stay open late so they could host a special gathering of singing school students after the evening singing. Students would gather in those establishments and sing their favorite songs and enjoy ice cream cones, milk shakes, and malts.

When the final day of the school arrived people came into Sabinal from everywhere. A large gathering of people filled the church auditorium to experience the closing night singing of the school. When it was over the crowd left town. Every Greyhound Bus passing through Sabinal was loaded with singing school students going home. Then the school campus closed and Sabinal once again became a quiet community.

Singing School boys had a bad habit of breaking up local romances between the teen-aged boys and girls of Sabinal. Many handsome singing school boys had a special attraction to the beautiful girls of Sabinal. The girls could sit beside their new boyfriends at night and watch them lead singing before the church. The boys of Sabinal felt they had good reason to be angry with the singing school boys. So, it was not uncommon for the local boys to try to do things to seek revenge for the loss of their girl friends.

Singing school students called the teen boys of Sabinal “The Town Boys”. The Town Boys knew that one of the dorms was the resident hall for high school students. That dorm was called “The Big Boys Hall”. That hall became the target of many strikes in the late hours of the night.

The Big Boys Hall sat along the side of an alley. Town Boys would fill a five gallon bucket with water and then drive quietly down the alley at 2 AM in the morning when all the singing school boys would be asleep. They would select a specific dorm window and heave all the contents of that bucket through the window. They would then take off and make a get-away. One singing school boy would suddenly awake as a wall of cold water fell upon his bed. The boy would shout, “Town Boys!” Immediately lights would come on and high school boys would bounce out of bed and run to the front door to see if they could find the Town Boys. Usually they could see only the dust of a rapidly vanishing car. It would take a full hour to get the singing school boys back and bed and back to sleep. The next day the singing school boys would plan strategies to protect their territory.

Town Boys usually stayed away from the singing school boys during the day. When the boys would go to town at 4 PM in the afternoon they would be more likely to find the local girls in town than the local boys. The boys seemed to come out only at night after the nightly singing.

In 1966 John Furr began working with Austin Custom Records. He was a field engineer. He traveled from town to town making high quality stereo recordings of high school bands and choirs. He would then edit the tapes and transform them into a long playing record. The records would be pressed, labeled, and sold to friends of the band or choir as a fund raising project. Austin Custom Records gave John permission to make high fidelity recordings of the singing school. For eight years the singing school would produce a record each summer and sell it to the students, they family, and friends.

The best record the school made was entitled “The Songs of Austin Taylor”. Austin Taylor refused to speak or sing if you placed a microphone in front of him and plug it into a recorder. The only way we were able to get him to speak or sing on tape was to conceal the fact that we were making a recording. We were able to get him to sing several songs for us when his back was turned to our recording equipment. Through those rare moments we were able to capture the voice of Austin Taylor and some of his songs with the vocal accompaniment of the singing school students. That was indeed a classic recording.

In the summer of 1968 a twelve-year-old boy named Tol came to the singing school. On Monday morning the music theory teacher asked all the students to sign in so the instructor could begin to learn their names. Tol signed the sheet with a handwriting that was not easy to read. When the teacher looked at Toll’s signature it looked like “Toad”. So, the teacher asked which student was Toad. Nobody responded. Finally Tol realized that the teacher had misinterpreted his handwriting, so he indicated that he was the person in question.

At 11 AM on the first day of the singing school it was time for the morning singing in the church auditorium. When Tol entered the auditorium the older teen-aged boys began to chant “Toad! Toad! Toad!” Most of the teachers and students entering the auditorium did not yet understand what had happened, so the chant did not make sense. One of the teachers finally quieted the students and began the morning singing.

By noon everybody had heard the story about the boy named Tol who had the new nickname of Toad. One of the teachers decided to help Tol transform an unfortunate situation into personal advantage. Tol was taken aside and offered some coaching. The teacher suggested that Tol start “The National Toad Society”. This would be the national society of all singing school students. Tol agreed to be the first president of this new society.

So that night before it was time to begin the evening singing the teacher introduced the “National Toad Society”. Tol was nominated to be its first president. Tol and his mentor has prepared a very funny three minute speech and Tol was fully prepared to deliver the speech from memory. The student body acclaimed Tol its president and demanded a speech from him. They were all shocked to see this twelve-year-old boy deliver a classic three-minute speech filled with good humor. The boy received a standing ovation from the students.

In 1969 one of the teacher’s wives created a large flag for the National Toad Society. It was made of yellow and white stripes with the face of a green frog on the flag. On the first night of the singing school the flag was lifted onto the school’s flag pole to fly proudly over the school. The same lady created a toad banner to be used as a backdrop when the National Toad Society had its annual meeting. Tol was again elected president. He delivered another classic three-minute speech.

The National Toad Society became an annual tradition for more than ten years. It was a great way to generate school spirit among the teen-age students. At least seven different young men served as the president of the society.

In 1970 the teachers of the singing school decided to publish a quarterly newsletter to be mailed out to all ex-singing school students. The paper was named “The Toad’s Croak”. After a few years the paper was given a new name “Song Notes”. Later it was again renamed “Journal Of Song Leading”. The Journal of Song Leading ceased to be published in 1992.

Sabinal is located in the edge of the Hill Country of Texas. The rivers in this part of the state are filled with clear water flowing over rocky river beds. The water is usually very cold because it comes from underground springs.

Each summer some of the singing school boys would be very spiritually moved by the wonderful fellowship of Christians and make a decision to be baptized. Most baptisms happened at night. It became a singing school tradition to baptize students in the Sabinal River. Carloads of students would be shuttled to the nearest bridge over the river. Edgar Furr would escort the boys to be baptized down into the cold river water. Headlights from automobiles would illuminate the river bank. It was always a thrill to sit along the banks of the Sabinal River and sing gospel songs and rejoice to see classmates make the good confession and be baptized in the river.

The inside walls of the singing school dorms were composed of unpainted and unfinished wood. From the earliest days of the school students looked for ways to put their names on the walls of the dorms. Boys usually brought a bottle of liquid shoe polish to keep their shoes looking good. Liquid shoe polish was a perfect paint for placing names on the wall. It became an established custom for boys to sign their name on the wall near their bed. Students who returned to the school year after year would place dates after their name to signify how many times they attended the school.

When singing school students grew up, got married, and started their family it was not unusual for these men to look for opportunities to drive through Sabinal to show their wives and children where they had learned to be a song leader. Many a family has walked up and down the sidewalks of the school campus looking at the old buildings. Then the family would be taken on a tour of the dorm where these men would search for their signature on the wall.

During the peak years of the school in the 1970’s there was a large number of boys to come to the school from several large churches in Middle Tennessee. One elder in one of those churches made it his project to recruit the students and send them to Sabinal. Most of those young men flew to Dallas from Nashville and then took the Greyhound Bus to Sabinal.

During the second week of the school the elder from Tennessee would come to Sabinal to visit the school and witness the progress of his students. He usually came in a large van and would drive the whole group home after the closing night singing.

That elder’s favorite thing to do was to take as many students as possible to some of the local cafes at night and sing for their customers. The enthusiasm of the Tennessee boys carried the evening. Local customers seemed to enjoy the change of pace in the local café.

When the Town Boys heard about the National Toad Society they did not fully understand it at first. But then they discovered that the singing school flag had become the flag for this society. The Town Boys decided to steal the flag. One morning; singing school students awakened to find their flag missing. Much effort was expended to recover the flag but it was never restored to its glorious flagpole.

In 1974 the singing school boys in the Big Boys Hall began the school by discussing among themselves what they could do to defend the Hall from the threats of the Town Boys. One of the students had a brilliant idea – why not make this challenge one of the functions of the National Toad Society? A brainstorming session followed and the students made a new invention – a special group of students who would watch out for the Town Boys. They called this new group “The Gestaptoads”!

Volunteer Gestaptoad members took turns climbing upon on the roof of the Big Boys Hall at night to watch for the coming of the Town Boys. On a full moonlit night it was relatively easy to see a group of teen-age boys walking down the street at midnight. The boy on the roof would send a quiet signal to the students in the hall and the students would prepare themselves for action. When the Town Boys discovered that they approach had awaken the students they would turn and run away.

When the singing school became a one-week program instead of a two-week program the teen-agers of Sabinal lost interest in the singing school. Fewer girls came around, and the phenomenon of the Town Boys faded. It is not possible to make a vocal music album with a singing school in a one-week time-frame, so the option of making records disappeared.

Teachers and students who moved with us from Sabinal to Trinity University in San Antonio, or from Trinity University to Abilene Christian University experience a major change in the singing school experience.

The Trinity experience was a very relaxed environment on one of the most beautiful university campuses in Texas. Singing School registration took place in a beautiful Spanish-style mansion. Our students resided in one of the newest dormitories on campus. We had classes in the Music Building and also in the Theater Building next door. We dined in the cafeteria across the street from the Music Building. Our nightly singings were conducted in the beautiful university chapel that stood at the top of the highest hill in the city of San Antonio.

Next door to Trinity were the San Antonio Zoo and the Sunken Gardens. Our students were able to visit those beautiful facilities after classes in the afternoon.

When we first arrived at Abilene Christian University the school was in the process of building the new Bible Building. For the first two years we conducted the school in the north wing of the Administration Building. The classrooms in that wing were old and the environment was not very attractive. But in the third summer of the school we were able to move into the new Bible Building. That building is absolutely perfect for a singing school. It has been a real blessing to be able to conduct a singing school in a facility that is obviously created for the kind of work we do. The beautiful atrium Hall of Servants is a neat place to visit between classes. The beautiful Chapel On The Hill with its stained glass walls is a wonderful place to sing. The acoustics in that chapel was designed to be absolutely perfect for a cappella singing. The computer lab in the Bible Building has been a popular place for students who are interested in learning to use music software for church musicians.

In 1996 the singing school celebrated fifty years of operation by hosting a home coming for all our students of all 50 years. The event was conducted in the Chapel On The Hill. We started on Friday night with a get acquainted time and a big singing. Then the main event happened on Saturday. We gave one hour to each decade of the singing school. All the students from 1946 - 1949 were given opportunities to tell stories and sing their favorite song from that decade. The next hour was given to the students from 1950 - 1959, and so forth through the year of 1995.

All day long we listened to fascinating stories from every decade. Even some of the men and women who lived near Sabinal attended to share their stories about the school. Naturally, the largest attendance was for the years of 1990 - 1995. It was fascinating to hear the difference in the stories from decade to decade.

In the 1940’s and 1950’s the singing school’s favorite songs were found among the gospel songs with lively melodies and energized messages. In the 1960’s through the early 1980’s Southern Gospel (Stamps-Baxter) provided our students with their favorite songs. Then, in the 1980’s praise songs began to appear. They were like a breath of fresh air with beautiful melodies and refreshing messages of praise. Our students quickly found many of their favorite songs in that new style of singing.

The Sabinal church tried to keep a hymnal in their pews that was requested by the singing school staff. In the early years of the school we used Christian Hymns No. 2 (Gospel Advocate). Then in the late 1950’s the Firm Foundation Company published the Majestic Hymnal. Most of our singing school faculty contributed to that hymnal, so it was adopted as the school’s official hymnal. In the early 1970’s Howard’s book, Songs Of The Church, was adopted because it offered singers more options of songs from the Southern Gospel style. The school now uses Howard’s Songs of Faith And Praise because of its heavy emphasis on praise songs.

When singing schools lasted two weeks the students and teachers had more time for leisure and recreation. When the school became a one week venture time pressures eliminated much of the leisure in the school and created a much more demanding schedule. Even in the rush of a one-week singing school we still find a little time to pursue a favorite past time for many of the students and faculty – namely, singing at the Dairy Queen at night. Each night of the singing school many of the students go to a very large Dairy Queen near the ACU campus. Students still enjoy ice cream treats and love to sing their favorite songs for the Dairy Queen’s customers.

This occurred in either 1961 or 1962.

Brother Furr had instructed all the boys to have their showers done by a certain time after the evening meal so he could have enough hot water to wash dishes. On this particular day we all obeyed and showered and dressed in preparation for the singing that evening at the old church building across from the school.

However, one of the boys had a shot put with him and a few of us began to challenge one another’s athletic prowess. An impromptu track meet was soon underway and it didn’t take long until we were all in need of another shower. Remembering bro. Furr’s rule, we decided to sneak back into the showers and quietly get cleaned up. Well, pretty soon the noise we were making came to the attention of bro. Furr and into the showers he came. We were all standing there very lathered up from soap and shampoo and bro. Furr went around turning off every shower, all the while reminding us of his rule and instructing us to get out of there, go back to the barracks and get dressed. We didn’t think he was serious and pleaded with him to at least let us rinse the soap off but our cries fell on deaf ears. He was adamant and told us that rules were rules. We took our towels, wiped the soap off as best we could and got dressed again, this time with a good layer of soap all over us.

Never again did any of us ever question bro. Furr’s seriousness when he said things were, or were not, to be done in a certain way.

Submitted by: David Smitherman

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