For the Saint Louis University Pep Band, music has the unique ability to connect musicians across generations. The group includes college students, alumni, faculty and one very special member: the Rev. George Kennard, S.J., who is 88 years old.
Kennard is no stranger to the impact a great pep band has upon a crowd. For nearly 16 years, the sound of his trumpet has reverberated through the rafters of SLU basketball games with blues, jazz and modern rock tunes and Billiken fight songs.
Pep Band Director Mike Beczkala believes the band is truly blessed to have Kennard.
“Father Kennard is the heart and soul of our band,” Beczkala said. “He brings so much enthusiasm and energy. It is people like Father Kennard that make life fun and meaningful.”
Kennard is an adjunct philosophy professor who joined the Jesuit order in 1937 after his senior year of high school. After four years in the San Francisco Bay area, Kennard was sent to St. Louis to complete his required philosophy training. In addition to his training, Kennard became the editor of the Modern Schoolman, a philosophical journal, and experimented with broadcasting production.
After completing the Jesuit formation process in 1952, Kennard became a philosophy teacher at Loyola Marymount. Kennard has also taught at the University of San Francisco and the University of California Berkeley.
Kennard originally came to SLU to further his research in the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of language, he said. While under the tutelage of the Rev. Garth Hallett S.J., an expert in linguistic philosophy and current dean of the College of Philosophy and Letters, Kennard accepted a teaching position within the philosophy department.
“I have never had as good of students as there are right here,” Kennard said. “They are smart and intellectually motivated, but, more importantly, they are good people with good morals.”
In 1960, Kennard developed a condition known as Bell’s Palsy-a paralysis of the facial nerve resulting in the inability to control the muscles of the face. Although the effects of the condition eventually subsided, Kennard’s facial nerves did not completely reform into their original pathways and coresponding destinations.
In order to strengthen the muscles of his face, Kennard began playing the trumpet.
“While playing a bugle at a football rally in Sacramento, I discovered that the muscles around my lips and upper jaw were especially fatigued,” Kennard said. “The muscles had been stimulated by nerves that had not been activated before, so I went out the next day and bought a $25 trumpet and started playing the blues.”
Kennard joined the trumpets of the SLU Pep Band in 1992. Although he enjoys renditions of “Sweet Caroline” and “YMCA,” his musical passions are fulfilled through the creation and performance of jazz, swing and blues, he said.
“The blues say, ‘Yes, things are bad, but things have been bad before,” Kennard said. “However, they will be better again. It is saying ‘Amen’ and looking through the misery.”
Kennard, who turns 89 years old on March 24, plans to move to Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, Calif., at the completion of the spring semester. He will no longer be teaching, but Kennard said that he will not consider himself retired.
“I will be going out to parishes to preach and to connect people with resources for forming discussing groups,” he said. “I want to show people what spiritual resources are out there. I want to stimulate people to get into the development of doctrine and their faith.”
Although his infamous conch shells-collected by Kennard during his summers in Hawaii-will no longer be used to celebrate each successful Billiken 3-point basket due to their recent theft, the tradition will be carried on through the use of trombones until the shells are returned or replaced.
“It will be a sad day come March when the basketball season comes to an end,” Beczkala said. “He is our friend, mentor and spiritual leader. Father [Kennard] will be greatly missed.”
Kennard said he looks forward to when he will return to SLU to pump up the crowd with a performance of “Go Big Blue” while watching a Billiken NCAA tournament victory.
