One Sunday afternoon shortly after he began entertaining at the Lincoln Air Force Base Officer's Club, Jim drove to a tavern in Roca, Nebraska, an outlying rural community. He drove to a roadside clump of trees by a farmer's field, parked his car, and started enjoying a beverage. He marveled at the long, healthy grass growing near the trees. He was gratified to be practicing the art of music again, even though he wasn't making much money. As he thought about his turn of good luck, Jim lay down on his back in the tall grass and looked at the big, bright blue sky. "Beautiful Nebraska, peaceful prairie land," he thought to himself. Suddenly a new melody popped into his mind.

Nine years earlier, when he was a newcomer and had not seen much of his adopted state of Nebraska, he had thought of writing a song about it, he recalled. That was before he had traveled to and seen points throughout the state with the Lincoln Sowers Club boosters. Now the same feeling overwhelmed him. His inspiration was so strong that he could feel his pulse throbbing in his arms and at the temples. From his heart a new song was flowing.

Jim jumped up, hurried to his car, and drove straight home to finish polishing the song on his piano. As he drove, a lone cloud appeared to the left of his route of travel and sprinkled his car with raindrops. The cloud passed away quickly and was replaced by a long, bright, colorful rainbow which spanned the broad horizon, reaching to the ground at both extremities. When he arrived home, Jim sat down at the piano in his living room and finished the song in about an hour. He jotted the melody down on a lead-sheet form with guitar chords on the top line. Then he put it away.

The next time that Guy and Edith Miller visited the Fras home, Irene read aloud from a newspaper article in which Mrs. Morrison, wife of Nebraska's Governor, invited composers to submit their songs to the chairman of a special song committee for the selection of an official State Song. "How about it?" Irene said to Jim. Why don't you write a Nebraska song?" Jim responded with gusto. "I already have the music, but I don't have lyrics."  he declared.
"Do you have any ideas for the lyrics?" Guy asked. "I sure do." Jim said. "Tell me what they are," Guy instructed.

Jim began to recite, "Beautiful Nebraska, peaceful prairie land, bent with many rivers..."
Guy interrupted spontaneously, "You mean, 'laced with many rivers'," he corrected.

 "Now something about the Sand Hills," Jim suggested, referring to the ranch country which spreads across two-thirds of the northern half of Nebraska. Guy quickly added the phrase, "And the hills of sand." The first rhyme was achieved.

Jim continued relating his ideas. Guy phrased and polished them. They described the Nebraska countryside and its many natural wonders, such as "Dark green valleys cradled in the earth, rain and sunshine bring abundant birth." Jim recalled the rainbow that reached to the ground at both ends after the little rainstorm, when he was driving home to finish composing the music on his piano. "Beautiful Nebraska, as you look around, you will find a rainbow, reaching to the ground," he proposed. Guy was pleased with the descriptive quality.

Finally, Jim suggested, "All these wonders by God's hand." Guy corrected again, shouting the alternative, "All these wonders, by the Master's hand; Beautiful Nebraska-land."

Jim was awed. "By the Master's hand," he repeated nostalgically. "That's the story of my life. Everything carefully created and shaped by God: I suffered so much and came so close to death so many times, and every time, a hand more powerful than anything on earth reached out to save me and bring me to this wonderful, peaceful land." He paused briefly, then spoke in a firm voice, "There had to be a purpose, and this is it!"

Jim submitted the composition, entitled "Beautiful Nebraska," to the State Song Contest Committee and started campaigning for its adoption. He enlisted the support of the Governor's wife Maxine Morrison. 7 long years later in 1967, it became the official Nebraska State Song.

In Memory Of Jim W. Fras

May 15, 1925 - September 9, 2002

Guy G. Miller

      

           
One day a friendly-appearing man in work clothes, who regularly boarded the evening bus at the same downtown stop as Jim, introduced himself. Guy Miller was a building superintendent for a large downtown department store when he met Jim. He was a humble working man who seemed to Jim to be either laughing or smiling all the time. He lived about five blocks from the Frases.

One evening Jim issued a neighborly invitation. "Why don't you bring your wife and come visit me?" He recited his address, and Guy wrote it down. That night, Guy and Edith Miller came to the Fras home. Edith was dark-haired, petite, and good-natured like Guy. Her dark eyes sparkled with youthful enthusiasm that belied her age and the fact that she was the mother of two nearly-grown children. When Guy spoke seriously, she listened attentively. When he joked or laughed, she joined in the fun.

Both fell in love immediately with Jim's compositions, which he played on the piano and the accordion for them. It was the beginning of a brother-sister type relationship that was to last for

many years. "Your music is so melodic and so different,"
Edith told Jim. "It's so original and still not strange," Guy observed.
They expressed amazement at the variety of styles to which each composition was adaptable, and at the unusual harmonies, which were easy to remember but were different from any music they had heard previously.

When Guy discovered that there were no lyrics for most of Jim's compositions, he volunteered to try to write some. Jim wrote and Guy rewrote several sets. Guy wrote others alone. He displayed great warmth. Jim tape-recorded his music in slow motion to help Guy to fit the words to the music.