Campanile compendium
The campanile and carillon were dedicated May 27, 1951, before an audience of 5,000 people in Memorial Stadium. Kansas Supreme Court Justice Hugo Wedell, a member of the planning committee, presented the building, and Chancellor Dean Malott accepted it.
Wedell said, “This grand university family did not merely adopt two memorial projects. It provided for the payment of both. And by payment, we do not mean pledges, but cash.
Carillonneur Elizabeth Berghout plays "Prelude," from Arcangelo Corelli’s Sonata for Violin and Continuo
“What a demonstration of recognition of, and gratitude for, service to the cause of human freedom this family and its friends have made! The grandeur of it all lies in the fact they made it free from coercion of high-pressure methods. They made it with the full understanding only gifts were desired that came from the heart, and what a heart they displayed!”
Malott’s acceptance speech concluded, “This great memorial will stand forever as a reminder of what they did and what they gave, by comparison with which all our efforts to honor their memory seem small indeed.
“Nor can a memorial be merely a reminder of the past. It is a challenge to the future, to those generations of students who will come in succeeding classes, through scores of years, connecting always the ancient past with the distant future.”
The dedication program included carillon music, believed to be the first carillon recital in Kansas. Anton Brees, carillonneur at the Bok Singing Tower in Lake Wales, Fla., played the program. He remained in Lawrence and played carillon recitals each day for three days. The first two pieces officially played on the carillon were America the Beautiful and The Crimson and the Blue.
Brees wrote soon after, “The Great Singer has a kind word in song for young and old. Cars from hundreds of miles around loaded with whole families will want to get acquainted with this new Singer — a native son of Kansas.”