UT’s “Alma Mater” begins “On a hallowed hill in Tennessee . . .” and has three verses. The “Alma Mater” was selected as the winner of a 1928 contest, which was sponsored by the music clubs of the university under the leadership of Professor L. S. Mayer, director of the Men’s Glee Club. All students, faculty, and alumni or members of their families, were eligible to compete for the $50 prize. The song, both words and music, had to be original and of high standard.
Eleven compositions were submitted to out-of-state judges for selection of the new alma mater. The winner was Mary Fleming Meek of Chattanooga. The decision was announced at the Alumni Association banquet on October 26, 1928, at the Farragut Hotel in downtown Knoxville. There were 130 alumni listening as the composer sat at the piano and played and sang the “Alma Mater” in public for the first time. The “Alma Mater” was copyrighted in 1928 by the music clubs of the University of Tennessee.
There have been slight changes from the 1928 original lyrics: “So here’s to you, old Tennessee” was originally “So here’s to you, old U of T,” and the line “rise glorious to the sight” was originally “rise glorious to the light.”
The university was not lacking an official college song before this time. In 1899 the Alumni Association offered a $20 gold prize to the person submitting the best college song. Norman Hinsdale Pittman, a student poet at the university, submitted “Tennessee, I Love Thee” (sung to the tune of “My Old Kentucky Home”). He was awarded the prize in June 1901. In about 1905 to 1906, “Tennessee,” written by Frank M. Darnell (sung to the tune of “Die Wacht Am Rhein”), became generally accepted as the university’s official song. But when the tune was changed to that of “Maryland, My Maryland” during World War I, to avoid the tune of an anthem of an enemy, the words of “Tennessee” no longer matched the music well, and the song fell into relative obscurity, with the adoption of “Here’s to Old Tennessee” (“Down the Field”) as the school song after the war. In 1924 Sigma Upsilon Literary Fraternity, assisted by Pi Delta Epsilon journalistic fraternity, initiated a contest for an alma mater. In 1927 the All Students’ Club had a contest ($15 prize) for new, appropriate words to “Here’s to Old U.T.”
In 1939 the All Students’ Club and the UT News Bureau distributed ten thousand copies of the “Alma Mater” among Tennessee’s high schools.
When the Pride of the Southland Band plays the “Alma Mater” at football games, it plays it in the key of F-major.