Co-Writer of the Baylor Fight Song Returns to Waco as Director for Georgia Festival Chorus Performance

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Contact: Terry Goodrich, (254) 710-3321
WACO, Texas (April 8, 2016) – Two unique Baylor traditions will come together as Frank Boggs, co-writer of Baylor's Fight Song, returns to conduct The Georgia Festival Chorus at Monday's chapel.
Performances will be at 9:05, 10:10 and 11:15 a.m. on Monday, April 11, in Waco Hall. The 100 voices of The GAFC will be conducted by Boggs, who is the maestro and founding director of the group. He founded the chorus, originally named Cobb Festival Chorus, in 1987 to fill a need for a civic chorale that could serve the spiritual needs of the residents of Cobb County, Georgia.
Before he created the chorus, however, Boggs studied at Baylor, graduating in 1948. He helped create the fight song we know today, "Old Fight!," in 1947 with his roommate, Dick Baker.
The previous fight song, "Bear Down Baylor Bears," was written by Fred and Tom Waring as the result of a Chamber-sponsored competition during the fall of 1940 in which student organizations wrote to famous musicians to ask them to compose a fight song for the school.
Boggs and Baker decided the song was "horribly hard to sing" and wrote the new song on Oct. 18, 1947, while many students were in Lubbock for the Baylor vs. Texas Tech football game (Baylor won, 32 to 6). The lyrics have changed a bit over the years, but the core of the song has remained true to what Boggs and Baker wrote nearly seven decades ago.
Boggs was also the first person ever signed to WORD Records started in 1951 by Baylor ministerial student Jarrell McCracken. He has recorded 24 albums in the past 50 years and was recently nominated for induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
His return to Baylor is a part of The GAFC's Texas tour, which takes them across several cities in the state, including Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth.
The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, go to www.TGAFC.org or email GaFestChorus@gmail.com. Waco Hall is located at 624 Speight Ave.
by Jenna Press, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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