Motor City Int67

In the chorus contest held on July 8, 1967, the DAPPER DANS OF HARMONY from Livingston, New Jersey, outsang fourteen other choruses to take the championship. The Detroit MOTOR CITY Chorus under the direction of Bill Butler finished in twelfth place despite an excellent overall performance.

Harrisville Labor Day Weekend was taking off

Harrisville, Michigan, was really beginning to become a mecca for Michigan area barbershoppers in 1967. Chapters such as Wayne, Grosse Pointe, Saginaw, Oakland County and Flint were beginning to have large contingents of members camping out over the festive weekend, and songfests around bonfires into the wee hours of the evening were not unusual. John Smith and Tom Pollard from the Wayne Chapter were two of the big organizers, although other chapters were beginning to play a larger role with planned events of all kinds for the kids and the grown-ups. The event was capped off on Sunday usually with a big parade of quartets and choruses for the delight of the attendees and the villagers from the area. The city of Harrisville declared itself the `Barbershop Capital of Michigan' and displayed banners in the streets welcoming barbershoppers for the weekend. It was truly an outstanding event.

The fall convention in Windsor presented some surprises

Sharp Lifters

The annual fall convention was held in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, the weekend of October 13-15, 1967, with 14 quartets and 12 choruses assembled for the big contest sing-out. In the quartet competition to determine the new district champion quartet, the SHARPLIFTERS proved to be unbeatable, as they outdistanced the second place HARMONY HOUNDS followed by the WONDER LADS, EVERSHARPS, HUSTLERS, KASUAL D'S, BEAN TOWN FOUR, NOTATIONS, ARBOR TRADERS, FORE-SOME, TWILIGHTERS, INNKEEPERS, EMERALD TONES and the SAFE COMBINATION.

The chorus contest proved to be quite a surprise. The Oakland County Chapter BARBERY HOST Chorus had just taken on Carl Dahlke as their new chorus director. I can vividly remember the scene in the warm-up room at that particular contest, as follows:

"The Detroit MOTOR CITY Chorus, under the direction of Bill Butler, was the odds on favorite to win the contest and repeat their international convention representation of the previous year. Carl Dahlke, who was quite a psychologist in his way, had us dress in our black rented tuxes earlier in the morning. Knowing that the warm-up room would be almost directly below where the Detroit chorus was dressing (they were located on a balcony surrounding the warm-up room at Cleary Auditorium), he had us line up and start singing our contest set at the same time they were dressing in the overhead balcony. The acoustics were excellent, and the Detroit members were stunned by the fine sound being produced by the Oakland County chorus as they sang `Where the Red, Red, Roses Grow.' In short, it took the wind out of their sails, and Oakland County went on to win the contest by a narrow margin of just five points."

The Wayne WONDERLAND Chorus finished a close third, but this contest marked the first of a long series of contest wins for the Oakland County Chapter in the next few years.

Gene Gillem

At the annual fall meeting of the House of Delegates held at the Norton-Palmer Hotel in Windsor on October 13, 1967, Lowell Wolfe, chairman of the Service Project Committee (Logopedics), reported on plans for a benefit show to be held at the Battle Creek Kellogg Auditorium in June. In other business, the Achievement Award Committee, headed by Ted Verway, presented the Achievement Awards for 1966 to Oakland County in the Gold Division and Flint in the Silver Division. It was at this meeting that the district by-laws were amended to add an additional first vice-president to the Board. An amendment was made to make it effective in May of 1968, and that such vice president would be elected annually. The annual election of officers was held with Gene Gillem elected president; E.E. Ryan, vice president-zone 1; Emerson Sperling, vice president-zone 2; Tom Damm, vice president-zone 3; Ron Gillies, vice president-zone 4; R.J. Schied, district treasurer, and Louis R. Harrington, secretary.

At the District Board meeting held in Lansing on October 29, 1967, the Board approved a new award plan for the district chorus contest held each spring; first, second and third place will be presented with awards; second, a junior chorus award will be made to the next highest scoring chorus from a chapter that has never won a district championship (once won, can't repeat for five years), and third, a novice chorus championship was to be awarded to the next ranked chorus from a chapter that had never won any position whatsoever.

During President Eric Schultz's reign, two new chapters were chartered, those being Big Rapids and Traverse City (May 24, 1967), and Owosso, Cadillac, Cedarville, Tecumseh and Grand Haven were licensed. Eventually, Cadillac, Cedarville and Grand Haven were chartered later in December of 1967.

The district lost one of its pioneers in late December when Leo Stiers of the Oakland County Chapter passed away. Leo, who was the charter president of the Oakland County Chapter, sang with one of the district's earliest quartets from Birmingham known as the VARIETY FOUR. He was a policeman in Birmingham, and often pulled some antics known only to the barbershoppers in the early days. He knew all of the barbershoppers in the Detroit area and what kind of cars they drove. Usually he also knew where the meetings were being held, so when he was on the midnight shift, barbershoppers on their way home would be pulled over to the side of the road when they drove through Birmingham on Woodward Avenue with blinking lights and sirens howling. Leo would then proceed to make them sing songs and tags until the wee hours before he would release them. Leo was quite a guy.

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