Blue Devil Bands

H. O’Reilly Clint wrote the words and music for Lawrence Tech’s fight song, Dear Old LTU , in 1932, the year Lawrence Tech was founded.

Clint (1900-61) was a Canadian-born composer, songwriter, author, and organist who became a U.S. citizen in 1926. In addition to Lawrence Tech’s alma mater, he wrote the music for My Michigan, adopted by concurrent resolution of the Michigan House and Senate in 1937 as the state’s official song. Another of his compositions is When It’s Night Time in Nevada, sung by cowboy star Roy Rogers in the 1948 movie by the same name, and later by Gene Autry. Clint also wrote the music for the fight song of the University of Detroit-Mercy, which is where he presumably met Russell E. Lawrence, who had been dean of engineering there prior to founding Lawrence Tech.

Clint’s education included the Toronto Conservatory. He wrote and directed radio programs, and was also music director for the Knights of Columbus in Michigan for four years, and organist for St. Mary’s Church in Detroit.

Lawrence Tech’s fight song initially mirrored the school’s original name, Lawrence Institute of Technology, and was titled Dear Old LIT . When the school became Lawrence Technological University in 1989, the song’s words and title were slightly altered to reflect the current LTU initials.

During Lawrence Tech’s first 35 years when the university was a regional (and in basketball, a national) athletic powerhouse, the fight song was played by Lawrence Tech band members at every home football and basketball game, as well as at assemblies, convocations, many away games, and other events.

Lawrence Tech’s first student orchestra formed in October 1932, within weeks of the University’s opening, and was known as Johnny Matyas and the Lawrence Techtonians. The group also played for dances in Detroit’s large hotel ballrooms. By 1937 the group was called the Melody Engineers. In 1940 the group was reconstituted as a band under the direction of Thomas E. Sadler, a former Army and Detroit City Fire Department bandmaster. He also led formation of a marching band. After a hiatus during World War II, in 1952 a new dance band was formed. Based on student interest, a number of musical groups have come and gone in the years since.

The fight song was also performed by many of the most famous singers and orchestras of the past. Lawrence Tech basketball games in the 1940s and ’50s attracted tens of thousands of fans to the University’s “home courts” – the Olympia Stadium or State Fair Coliseum. The huge dances that immediately followed the games attracted such greats as Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and many more.

By the 1970s the fight song was all but forgotten until it was revived in 1978 as the recessional played to close Lawrence Tech’s Commencement Exercises.

This version of the Lawrence Tech fight song was recorded early in 2005 by the Birmingham Concert Band, The Birmingham band first played the song at the 2004 Commencement, marking the first time in over 40 years that the song had been played with full orchestration. Birmingham Concert Band leader Grant Hoemke deserves credit for reviving and expanding the original scores that again bring the song to life.