Each year I lend my voice to the hundreds of singing spectators waiting for the horses to come out of the gate. As I sing along with the exited crowd, the beautiful words of My Old Kentucky Home, the song written by Stephen Collins Foster, bring tears to my eyes. My mind flashes back to my grammar school years where my teachers made it a first priority to learn this and other songs by him.
Some of the most popular were: Oh! Susanna (1848), De Camptown Races (1850), Old Folks at Home [aka Swanee River] (1851), My Old Kentucky Home, (1853), Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair (1854), and Beautiful Dreamer (1862). We knew the words to these ballads before we ever memorized The Star Spangled Banner. They were Kentucky’s own, embedded in our hearts and minds forever.