There was a big-name concert on campus this week, and the performer, Josh Ritter, is an Oberlin alumnus.

Obies have a tendency to return after they have graduated. Every year, writers, politicians and various other passionate, knowledgeable people grace the campus with their presence once more. Now I’m sure this isn’t the only school whose alumni return for yet another opportunity to be a part of the educational process. But Oberlin does have something unique. It brings back musicians.

Ritter graduated with a self-created degree in American History in Narrative Songs. Initially, he had planned to follow the path of his neuroscientist parents, but picking up a guitar around the age of 18 seems to have affected Ritter in a rather major way. I mean, he is now a veritable name on the folk-pop scene.

He started off along the path of a musical career here on campus, finding his way through the decisions and pressures of being a college student. I can think of several fellow Obies with MySpace Music accounts who spend their spare time thinking of words to rhyme with “introspective” and “global warming,” who play acoustic guitar shows at the Cat and make not-so-rough records in the TIMARA studios. In fact, Ritter himself recorded his first, self-titled record here at Oberlin.

The number of students playing slightly under-the-radar, self-composed music on campus is quite large. Everyone knows someone who carries around a tiny notebook to jot down spontaneous thoughts, or someone who spends an equal amount of time practicing his finger-picking patterns and doing his chemistry homework.

Some of these students are in the Conservatory. Others are not. We actually often take for granted the amount of talent concentrated there. The Con is a world-class institution. But outside the Con there are other gifted musicians who can add to the Con’s strength, humming their own tunes around the edges of such prestige.

Regardless of their education, I want to talk about them. Con and College alike, I want to find these people and tell you about them. They certainly have things to say. In fact, they may have things to teach us, or emotions to trigger within us, and they haven’t even left campus. We can support them while they’re still here, eating in co-ops or Stevie, doing homework in Tappan.

So where do these folk musicians begin to sustain themselves in the outside world using this passion of theirs; when do they have a few people recognize their sound, their lyric, their name? I don’t know. It seems like a good deal of luck to me. But we, the collective Oberlin campus, should celebrate their presence. Some day, perhaps in seven years, they might come back too. And it might be a hell of a concert.