A memorial service has finally been scheduled for retired Chadron State College music professor Dr Jackson Hammitt, who passed away January 12th in Houston, Texas, at age 76 shortly after he and his wife Peggy completed a cruise.

The service will be Friday, April 10, at 10:30 am in Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Rapid City, where the Hammit’s had lived for over a decade.

The service will be conducted by Rev. Chris Roussell, rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, and Sarah Jenkins, pastor of the United Methodist Church in Valentine.

Jenkins was a student and close friend of Dr Hammitt and together with two other students – Kevin Dart and his wife Jan and Ryan Lovell and his wife Stephanie – who also became close friends and de facto family for the Hammits, who had no children, assisted Mrs. Hammitt in arranging the memorial service.

Jackson Hammitt taught music at CSC from the fall of 1967 until his retirement in the spring of 2001. He also directed the Chadron Community Chorus for 29 years, provided piano accompaniment for college students and guest performers, and was a frequent vocal soloist in local concerts.

Hammit almost always played the organ processional and recessional for Chadron State commencements and sang the National Anthem at CSC football games until his retirement.

He also played the keyboards at the United Methodist Church and Grace Episcopal Church in Chadron and directed the choir at the First Presbyterian Church in Rapid City after they moved there.

During an interview in 1998, Hammitt said being at Chadron State was a perfect fit because it gives him the opportunity to do all the things he liked to do. That, he explained, included “making music” as well as teaching it.

He noted that during his tenure at the college his skills improved because he continually worked with students and practiced for his performances. He said providing the accompaniment for guest performers was challenging because they usually chose difficult music.

His teaching specialties included music history and literature. For a number of years, he played the piano as a member of the Chadron Arts Trio that also included Dr. William Winkle on the tuba and Carola Winkle on the clarinet. The trio performed over a wide area.

Hammitt also was president of the CSC Faculty Senate “seven or eight times” (in his words) and was a Student Senate sponsor for about 20 years. He said he cherished the latter responsibility because it gave him the chance to know students who were not involved in music.

In addition, he was extremely active in Kiwanis International. He was a leader in the Chadron Club for more than 30 years, lieutenant governor of Division 6 (western Nebraska) 1977-78 and governor of the Rocky Mountain District (western Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming) 1982-83.

In 1992, Hammitt received the Circle K International Circle of Service after he had been the district administrator for Circle K for two seven-year periods. In addition, the first six Circle K governors who had worked with him gave him a life membership in Kiwanis.

This dedication carried with him when he moved to Rapid City in 2001, when he also served with the local downtown Kiwanis chapter there. During his time in Rapid City, he was the President of their chapter for two terms.

This service also extended out to the Black Hills School of Mines local student chapter as well, and the Hammits attended nearly 20 Kiwanis International conventions.

Jackson was deeply involved with the Dakota Choral Union, not only performing with the group, but also serving on its board and often performing with Cantori, a subgroup of the Choral Union. He is fondly remembered for living the slogan of the DCU, which is, “Sharing Our Passion for Singing”.

Hammitt was also a member of the American Guild of Organists, serving as Dean of the AGO chapter in Rapid City, and was co-chair of the Young Vocal Artists Competition, where he was responsible for the planning of the organization and making sure that the competition thrived year to year.

The Hammitts have been outstanding supporters of the Chadron State music program, both while the college employed him and after they retired. Mrs. Hammitt worked in the Chadron City Schools for about 33 years, mostly as an elementary media specialist and an instructor in the gifted program.

It was revealed in 2006 that the couple that the had arranged to leave a large portion of their estate to the Chadron State Foundation to help nurture the CSC music program, a gift expected to total approximately a million dollars.

They also gave $35,000 for restoration of a 1919 Steinway Model D concert grand piano that was the school’s first piano, contributed annually to a CSC music fund used for what the music faculty members determines is the department’s greatest needs, and to a music scholarship fund established in memory of Jackson’s parents.

Hammitt was born and raised in McKeesport, Pa., where his mother was a foreign language teacher and his father also was a teacher before he went into business and sold some of the first television sets in that area. Later he was a fund-raiser for the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the Methodist Church.

He said neither of his parents was musical, but there was an old piano in the basement of the home where his family lived before he went to school.

When he started banging around on it, his parents decided he must be interested in music, so when the famil moved to a new home the summer after he had completed the first grade, they bought a baby grand piano and started him on piano lessons.

Hammitt often said his second piano teacher, Minnie Slessinger, decided long before he did that he was going to be a musician.

In high school, he played the cello in the orchestra and accompanied the choir on the piano. He seldom sang while in high school, but took voice lessons in college and became a powerful baritone.

He majored in organ performance at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1959 and where he also met his wife, a native of New Jersey.

Jackson Hammitt and Margaret “Peggy” Read married on June 24th, 1961 Both did graduate work at the University of Michigan, where she earned a master’s degree in library science and he earned both a master’s degree in 1961 and a Ph.D. in music history in 1970.

While nearing completion of the coursework for his doctorate, he applied for a job at Chadron State. He had never been to Nebraska and believed he was the last person hired by CSC who came the campus train for the interview.