Fulbright Scholar to honor Mildred Bailey in free NIC lecture-concert

North Idaho College turned Boswell Hall into a public stage Tuesday for a program that linked jazz history, tribal heritage and a national anniversary campaign all at once. The free lecture-concert brought visiting Fulbright Scholar Robert Cozma to the Coeur d’Alene campus to honor Mildred Bailey, the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Member celebrated as the Queen of Swing.

The lecture began at 10 a.m. in Boswell Hall, Room 102, with a live community concert scheduled for noon in the Boswell Hall lobby. The event was open to the public, giving residents outside the college a chance to hear a program NIC framed around "Celebrate Jazz as a Global Language with Dr. Robert Cozma." Dr. Gary Edwards was listed as a co-presenter, and Dr. Faith Valente was the NIC contact for questions.

The program mattered locally because it pulled a major figure in American music back into the region that shaped her. The Library of Congress says Mildred Bailey, who lived from 1907 to 1951, found success singing pop songs and early jazz in the late 1920s and 1930s. The same source says she was part American Indian and that she and vibraphonist Red Norvo were known as "Mr. and Mrs. Swing." Other Native arts sources say Bailey grew up near De Smet, Idaho, on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation, and that the Coeur d’Alene Tribe began working in 2012 to ensure her legacy was honored.

NIC’s setting gave the event added weight. The college says its campus sits on land long used by the Coeur d’Alene Tribe as a gathering place, before the site was occupied by Fort Sherman and later became an educational facility. The school traces its roots to Coeur d’Alene Junior College in 1933, became North Idaho Junior College in 1939 and adopted the North Idaho College name on July 31, 1971.

Cozma’s Fulbright background also fit the program’s reach beyond Kootenai County. The Fulbright Program says it was founded in 1946 to increase mutual understanding and support peaceful relations, and now awards about 9,000 merit-based scholarships annually in more than 160 countries. Tuesday’s event was built to reflect that wider exchange, with the listing saying it would explore the global evolution of jazz and connections between Romania, the United States and the Inland Northwest.

Freedom250 gave the program a second layer of public meaning. The national, non-partisan organization is leading the celebration of America’s 250th birthday, and the White House says July 4, 2026 marks 250 years of American independence. By pairing that commemoration with Bailey’s life and legacy, NIC made a clear local argument: Kootenai County’s history is not separate from the nation’s story, and one of its most important voices came from right here.