Born Sept. 27, 1919 in Newberry, S.C., to the late Lilly Reighley and Alpheus E. Bouknight, he attended Newberry College and received his master’s degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. He earned a doctorate from Columbia University in New York City. After serving in World War II, he embarked on a career of music education. From 1947 through the 1950’s, he served as band director at Banes High School in Winston- Salem and New Hanover High School in Wilmington. In 1959, he joined the music department at Eastern Illinois University, where he retired in 1980. He moved to Cleveland, Tenn. and in the early 1990s moved to Huntersville where he served as an elder of Davidson College Presbyterian Church.