Mildred Andrews Boggess
(1915 - 1987)
Profession: Educator / Organist
Hometown: Norman
Inducted: 1971
Mildred Andrews Boggess was known as Oklahoma's First Lady of the Organ. Born in 1915 in Hominy, Oklahoma, Boggess began piano lessons at the age of six in Tulsa. She began her college career at Bethany College in Kansas, but completed her bachelor's degree of Fine Arts in Piano at the University of Oklahoma. She then pursued her graduate degree at the University of Michigan in Piano Performance.
Boggess returned to the University of Oklahoma in 1938 as a faculty member, teaching piano and helping establish the organ program. During her career, she was one of the first women to play at a recital at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. While at OU, Boggess received the Ten Outstanding Faculty Members award in 1952, one of her greatest achievements.
Boggess loved teaching the organ and helping her students succeed to their fullest. Many of her students would receive major awards like the Fulbright Scholarship and play all over the world. Before retiring in 1976, she published a book titled Church Organ Method as a guide for other piano and organ instructors. When Boggess passed away in 1987, the University of Oklahoma installed a pipe organ in The Grace B. Kerr Gothic Hall of Catlett Music Center in her honor. Boggess is still known as one of the greatest pipe organists in the nation.
Want to learn more?
Click below to watch former students of Mildred Andrews Boggess discuss their experiences with her at the University of Oklahoma.