Carolyn Bailey Berneking was tired of people telling inaccurate stories about the origin of the Rock Chalk chant, which her grandfather developed in the 1880s.

So Berneking, a librarian at Kansas University’s Spencer Research Library, bought KU a bench with an engraving of the chant’s story.

“It was just to get it down in cement,” she said. “There’s so many fallacies and fairy tales that have been written.”

The gray bench was recently placed outside Bailey Hall, named for Berneking’s grandfather, E.H.S. Bailey, a chemistry professor at KU from 1883 to 1933. It’s a busy location along Jayhawk Boulevard next to a popular KU on Wheels bus stop.

A small plaque sits on the ground next to the bench, telling what Berneking calls the “true story” of the Rock Chalk chant.

According to an article Bailey wrote in the 1917 Jayhawker yearbook, the KU Science Club decided it needed a yell during a meeting in 1886. Bailey’s original chant was “Rah! Rah! Jayhawk, KU,” repeated three times. It was selected over several others by the club and soon adopted by the student body at large.

Who changed the “Rah! Rah!” to “Rock Chalk” is unknown, but Bailey indicated it might have been fellow scientists at KU, in a reference to the limestone that is found in the area.

Today, the chant is common at the beginning of KU sporting events and at the end of basketball and football games in which the Jayhawks are victorious.

Henry Fortunato, a graduate student who directs the “This Day in KU History” Web site, said the attention the chant has received through the years may have led KU followers to dream up more exciting stories than the truth about the chant’s origin. According to various reports, it was selected at the 1920 Olympics to be the representative American college yell, and President Theodore Roosevelt called it “the greatest college cheer ever devised.”

Kansas University sophomore Katie Eggers, Olathe, chats with a friend on her cell phone while seated on a newly installed bench in front of Bailey Hall. A small plaque, below, tells the story of Professor E.H.S. Bailey originating the Rock Chalk chant in 1886. Eggers sat on the bench on Tuesday.

“Things like this tend to grow a bunch of legends, especially when it sounds good,” Fortunato said.

Another theory about the inaccurate stories, Fortunato said, is that they developed to keep the cheer alive.

“I think that — and this is pure speculation — that there were times the cheer may have been dying — going into the trash bin of history — and people grasped at possible legends to keep it around,” he said.

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Either way, Fortunato said, history has shown that the Rock Chalk chant is a “great” college yell.

“‘Rock Chalk Jayhawk’ just clicks,” he said. “When you hear it and you’re affiliated with KU, it makes the short hairs on the back of your neck stand up straight.”