Written by Tiffany Jones
Students cooling their feet in the lily pool during this hot weather have been joined by a new friend: Uncle Bud.
A statue memorializing “Uncle Bud,” otherwise known as Kenneth Davis, Jr., was unveiled this summer by Harding A Cappella Chorus alumni in one of the final stages of their plan to give tribute to Davis, Jr., the organizer and conductor of the chorus for 35 years from 1953 to 1988.
Davis took his musical groups around the world, even taking Belles & Beaux on USO tours to play for American troops. The Harding A Cappella Chorus also traveled all over the United States and Europe. He served as chair of the Department of Music and in 1993 was given the honor of the Distinguished Alumni Award by the university.
The idea for the memorial started in 1995 after an A Cappella Chorus reunion on campus. The chorus, which retired along with Davis in 1988, wanted to find a way to commemorate his legacy on campus. This began with raising money to help build the Reynolds Building in 1998, followed with the renovation and renaming of the Kenneth Davis Lily Pool in 2008 after his death in 2005.
“Well, at the time we took some of the recordings of the A Cappella chorus from back in the ‘50s and ‘60s , they had done some hymns from Harding,” said Dr. Linda Thompson, who is on the committee of A Capella Chorus alumni. “We had them put on CDs and started selling those and that began getting money in.”
In addition to the money from the CDs and general soliciting, Darryl Chitty, 1969 Belles & Beaux alumnus, made montages of Davis and sold them for $500 and $200.
One of the last stages was the statue, which cost an estimated $76,000. The statue is almost complete and will be finished with a plaque explaining Uncle Bud’s life and story. Any extra money received will go towards a scholarship fund.
Thompson said she wants the statue and the area around to be a “garden of peace,” but knows that there is a risk of student pranks.
“As long as it never takes a true form of vandalism, it isn’t going to bother me if a club jersey appears on Uncle Bud or whatever,” Thompson said. “We wanted something low-key, something that you could go sit beside and have your picture made. We wanted this statue to be personal.”
Many students are doing as Thompson hoped, sitting and playing around on the statue and taking pictures. However, not all of the students share the same sentiment. Junior Claire Moore, daughter of an A Cappella alumnus, finds the statue a little unsettling.
“I mean no disrespect because I know all about Uncle Bud, but his statue kind of reminds me of Ronald McDonald,” Moore said. “He was a good man, but the statue is a little creepy”
At the bottom of the statue, the inscription reads: “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” The song was one of the most requested songs that the chorus sang, and Davis was the soloist.
Now it is memorialized for the whole campus to see.
“Why is it important that students now know about Uncle Bud? I think he has just influenced so many lives all around,” Thompson said. “People all over the country that are now chorus directors … and people from many different walks of life just have so much love and respect for this man.”
