Arch P. Naramore

George “Dumpy” Bowles isn’t the only one who can scratch out odes to Kansas University.

Though Bowles’ 1912 “I’m a Jayhawk” caught on and eventually became KU’s fight song, throughout KU’s history a number of people have penned music for the Jayhawk — including a fruit-and-vegetable broker who graduated from KU in 1909.

Arch P. Naramore wrote “The Jayhawk Song” in 1942. A wartime tune, its lyrics are a bit feistier than the usual fare. From the first verse:

JAYHAWK bird of Thunder

Noble Lord of his domain

Claws that strike with vengeance

Mighty wings that generate

Wind and rain and sunshine

Guardian of the state.

Other interesting lyrics are sprinkled throughout the song, too, with Jayhawk boys grabbing tails of tornadoes with their bare hands, and the chorus singing of an all-seeing Jayhawk way above the trees, his howling resounding in the breeze.

“It’s wonderful,” said Naramore’s grandson, a Lawrence resident also named Arch Naramore, after his grandfather. “If you think about this bird that can see in all directions at once, that’s pretty cool.”

He said he’d once sent his grandfather’s song to former KU basketball coach Larry Brown after the team won the 1988 national championship — they were also rather all-seeing, he thought.

Brown wrote back, thanking him for the song, and said he’d give it to the band leader. But then Brown abruptly left the university, and that was the end of that, Naramore said.

John Naramore, another grandson living in Lawrence, talked about his grandfather, a young man from White City who became the first of four generations to attend KU. Later, he began to write music as a hobby.

He was rather prolific, writing secular and religious songs from his basement in Wichita, but never really had a song that was terribly popular, Arch Naramore said.

“He wrote about things he liked to do,” John Naramore said, perhaps referring to songs like “Fishin’,” or “I Want To Sing (My Whole Life Through).”

John Naramore said his father served in World War II, causing his grandfather to create the song he would probably become best known for: “God, Guard Our Fighting Men.”

That song, John said, once was played on national radio. And it was sung in Rotary Clubs and at other gatherings across the state.

Jennifer Sanner, senior vice president for the KU Alumni Association, said she’d never heard of Naramore’s Jayhawk song, but that’s not that unusual, she said.

“I think that’s what makes KU history and tradition fun,” she said. “We’re always uncovering new history and stories.”