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From: "Coates, James D"
Subject: Re: Finding Barbershop.... Here's my story - it should be inspiring to all you long-suffering Membership VP's out there. I was 20, newly married, and in my junior year of college. I had sung all my life - church youth choir and adult choir, elementary, junior high, and high school choirs, etc. But when I had moved away from home to go to college, I left singing fall by the wayside as I concentrated on other things. We were living in an apartment at the time. Once a week we got a free all-classifieds newspaper delivered to the building. I would normally glance through it quickly and toss it. But one week an ad caught my eye: "Wanted - Men who love to sing!" It went on to invite me to visit a meeting of the local barbershop chorus. I couldn't recall ever having heard a barbershop quartet or chorus live, but I had seen the movie of "The Music Man", and it looked like a fun way to sing. So I took myself over to the meeting that night. I didn't know a soul when I walked in, and the next youngest member of the chorus at the time was 34. But it didn't matter. They took me in and assigned me a 'buddy' for the evening. I heard a local chapter quartet, sang songs with the chorus, sang tags in a quartet, and I've been hooked ever since. By the way, Larry Ajer found barbershop and joined our chorus a year or two later in pretty much the same way. All from a small ad in the paper. It helps to spread the word any way you can. Jim Coates, Presentation Judge
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