A gala concert with a “Greatest Generation” theme is the first event in what may become a new entrepreneurial tradition for Missouri Southern.

University President Dr. Bruce Speck has begun using the term and now he wants to set the example.

“One of my goals is to create more of an entrepreneurial campus where people take whatever abilities they have, and talents, and use them as best they can to further their particular unit of the University,” Speck said. “So this was an opportunity for me to partner with the music department and for us to try something new.”

The project is collaborative. Speck said he initiated it because music was a logical connection for him. The songs, some patriotic, some religious, just came together.

“I don’t even know if they’d heard me sing at that point,” he said.

Students both choral and those in the Southern Jazz Orchestra, will accompany the president.

It’s kind of neat because he’s like the authority figure and he’s doing something with the student body,” said Mary Robinson, sophomore music education major.

Lead alto saxophone and senior music performance major, Levi Randolph, says he is glad to promote the art department, but some of the material has stretched his style.

“We’re playing in the ‘greatest generation’ and not in our general style,” Randolph said, naming off some of the big band selections. “But it’s a great history lesson too.”

Speck plans to make it an annual event, changing the theme each year.

“We have good sponsorship and that’s really good,” he said.

Posters promote the event throughout campus, Speck is making the rounds of the local morning shows. He will appear on KSN on the morning of Oct. 22.

Before the semester is out he wants to have a document in place granting departments across campus similar latitude in fundraising.

The President’s Gala Concert is 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 23 in the Taylor Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students and seniors.