History

It all began, over 60 years ago, right in the same hall where we meet today – 1605 Cameron Street.
The Alexandria Chapter of SPEBSQSA, Inc., (Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, now simply called "Barbershop Harmony Society") was chartered June 19, 1948.  We began to be called the "Alexandria Harmonizers" after an Alexandria Gazette article used the term to describe the new group in town that was having a concert.

Soon after our founding, the chorus marketing gurus coined the phrase “George Washington Sang Here,” ....a play on the popular ubiquitous gag in the Alexandria/Mt. Vernon area “George Washington Slept Here!”

The chapter happened because a gung-ho barbershopper from the DC chapter, Dean Snyder, was active in spreading the word and helping men discover this singing hobby. In the winter of 1947, he and his wife rescued Gene Barnwell and his wife who were walking along the road in a bad storm. Dean quickly led the discussion to singing and as they say, “it is all history from there.”

Gene was into music and helped Dean rally enough singers to be ready to charter a chapter in Alexandria with Gene taking on the role of the chapter's first musical director. The chapter was sponsored in the Society by the Singing Capital Chorus of Washington, DC, which had been established in 1954.  Alexandria would later go on to sponsor six other chapters.

Once chartered, Dean was quick to suggest to Gene that, as director of the Alexandria Recreation Department, he should consider adding "barbershop harmony singing" to the department's list of supported activities. This is how our chapter came to be supported by the City of Alexandria, thru Parks and Recreation!  As part of Parks and Rec department, they were able to procure the recreation center on Cameron Street for their meetings, where we still rehearse today. In recent years the Alexandria Commission for the Arts has also been a consistent source of financial support.

True to its name to preserve quartet singing, the chapter had quartets form right away in those early years. One quartet, THE VIRGINIA HAMS, was composed of several men who had been founders of the chapter or who had joined right after the founding: Al Siepert, Bill Bennett, Henry Brown and Wilbur Schmidt. They combined humor and good singing to entertain a lot of audiences in the area. The quartet frequently changed members during their active years, with ten different versions involving 20 members, including our current resident agent and attorney, Jack Crickenberger.

Membership of the chapter started with about 20 guys, the required number to receive a charter from the SPEBSQSA headquarters signed by Society Founder OC Cash. The number grew pretty fast and stayed at about 60 for a lot of years until leaders in the chapter made a concerted effort to grow and get to 100 in the 1980s. Eventually the chapter became the largest in the Society with over 200 members for many years. Then as now, many men joined and when they were transferred for military or work reasons, they retained their membership. In the six decades since its founding, over 1,100 men have proudly sung as an Alexandria Harmonizer. 

Then as now, the chapter was built upon a strong leadership and administrative foundation. Many members were leaders in government and the military and brought their skills and talents to bear in the chapter.  That legacy continues today as our chapter has a reputation for doing things well and with class at the chapter level as well as providing leadership at the Southern Division and Mid-Atlantic District levels above the chapter. Currently the following active members are serving in district leadership positions: Gary Plaag is immediate past president, Bob Eckman is treasurer, Keith Jones is secretary, Dennis Ritchey is member-at-large on the board. Alan Wile is a past district president and recently completed a term on the Society board of directors. Carl Kauffmann is treasurer of the district operations team.

Some of our members have also served at the Society level as judges, teachers and administrative leaders. Wilbur Sparks was president of SPEBSQSA in 1970. Darryl Flinn, who was our coach and coined the phrase “Breathless Moments,” was also Society president and served a term as executive director. Dean Snyder never served as president but was Society Historian for years and was often called upon to speak or share his knowledge of the Society as an elder statesman. (We had him on stage with us when he was 94, and he introduced a song as part of our swan song package at the 1996 International in Salt Lake City.)  Bud Arberg, a composer and one of our early
musical directors, was the first to use the phrase “barbershop craft” to describe teaching techniques and methods. Bud was the initial instructor of schools and developed materials used around the nation to help men sing better. These four Harmonizers, plus prolific arranger, Walter Latzko, are all enshrined in the Barbershop Harmony Hall of Fame.

Many of our men have headed up committees at the national level (the organization became international when it included singers from Canada). Now there are groups singing our style of barbershop in England, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Denmark and New Zealand.) For many years, Jack Pitzer headed merchandise and marketing committees, which included operation of the store where the Society sells CDs and clothes and other logo items. Recently, Joe Cerutti and Alan Wile were on Society membership task forces. Joe was also the chair of the Society’s Chorus Director Development Committee along with Terry Reynolds and John Hohl. Chris Buechler is on the Society Governance and Bylaws Committee and is Society Parliamentarian, and Bob Sutton is on the archives committee.

Several members in the chapter have been or are now certified judges for contest events: Wachter, K Jones, Werner, Pitzer, Hohl, Jed Casey, Plaag, Harner, Buechler, Flinn, Odell, Stern, and Cerutti.

Similarly, it was guys from our chapter who felt the need to provide better leadership training for chapter officers. They developed a training program that became the COTS or Chapter Officer Training School (now internationally called "Leadership Academy" by the Society).  Harmonizers regularly teach at these schools all over the USA.

One important aspect of the chapter history was the early adoption of strong show production activities. The annual spring show began in 1951 and was called the Spring Tonic. The men, and their wives too, built elaborate sets and wrote funny and entertaining scripts. The shows were most often held in local high schools. We still have Spring Tonics and since 1984 we have also had a fall show.

Michael Organ joined the chapter in 1975 and brought a whole new approach of show production that members Bob Bates, Gary Plaag and Steve White expanded upon for about a dozen annual shows. In recent years Ken Fess, Ken Rub, and most recently Brian Ammerman, have produced our big shows, while Greg Tepe produces most of our package shows, including in prestige venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Supreme Court.

Popular productions were the Toyland show which we took on the road to many chapters in our district and to the district convention; one show in a fraternity house; a knights and dragons melodrama; a pirate show; several westerns; a magic show; a show staged in a local small town radio station with a sound effects guy, a detective, an office secretary and a crew of characters doing the radio ads. Stories from those fun shows are often told when guys dig back into the past.

Our uniforms from the past often get talked about too, such as the wild yellow and green suits that scored high in stage presence in 1978, or our popular red, white and blue leisure suits when they were in style. We have had a few tux outfits, including white ones, and the front row has used pop-up top hats and even snap canes. And of course we have had a number of Velcro 'tear-away' uniforms over the years. The end caps, brought back in 2010, were invented by and became a signature item for the Harmonizers in contests and formal shows in the past. In recent years we have added an annual holiday show with elves and Santa and more recently turned it into a dinner show where chorus members are both waiters and singers.

Over the years we have had some special feature shows like the 2010 joint show with the Westminster Chorus and seven top quartets from around the world. In 1987 we hosted a joint show featuring the many-time-gold-medal chorus, Vocal Majority from Dallas, TX, at Constitution Hall in DC. We also sang jointly with some Sweet Adeline choruses including gold medalists the Ramapo Valley Chorus, and silver medalists The Pride of Baltimore.

In 1961 the chapter hosted a Sunday afternoon show featuring the famous BUFFALO BILLS from “The Music Man” Broadway and movie fame. Another fun show was when we one of our exchanges with the Cincinnati Western Hills Chorus (now the Gateway Chorus). They came to VA and did their zany Robin Hood show, and we went to OH and presented our Toyland show. More recently Ken Rub produced a show featuring Rockapella to help us attract a younger and diverse musical audience.

Over the years we have produced several albums and then CDs to market our singing and raise money. The most recent holiday CD, Comfort & Joy, was a huge success.

While the chapter grew in numbers and administratively, it also grew strong musically. We have been so fortunate to have gifted chorus directors Gene Barnwell -1948-50; Werner Paul – 1950-51; Bud Arberg – 1951-62; Oz Newgard – 1963-70; Scott Werner – 1970-80 and 1984-2002; John Hohl – 1980-83; Richard Lewellen – 2003-06;
and Joe Cerutti – 2007-present.

The chorus began to make it’s mark and finally won the Southern Division contest in 1975. It was not until 1977 that we won our first Mid-Atlantic District contest. Over the years the Harmonizers have won the district 23 times and have earned 17 International medals, including four golds: in 1986 in Salt Lake City, 1989 in Kansas City, 1995
in Miami Beach, and in 1998 in Atlanta. Some will say that one of the best successes was when we won the district for the first time and went to the 1977 International in Cincinnati and earned a fourth place medal. We were a Cinderella chorus and on our way up the ladder at that point. There are still 20 chapter members who sang and earned that first medal – four are actively singing today!

The good singing and excellent performance packages led to opportunities to showcase ourselves at the Kennedy Center Honors show several times, the Supreme Court, Carnegie Hall, Disneyland with Dick Van Dyke, Wolf Trapp’s 20th anniversary gala with Rosemary Clooney, Michael Feinstein and the Canadian Brass; Victor Borge's 80th birthday TV special which is still often shown on cable TV; and we helped Elizabeth Taylor launch her new perfume.

Stage presence teams helped the chorus expand its entertainment skills beginning with chairmen like Jack Pitzer, Jed Casey, Craig Odell, Jay Hargrove, and continued by Chuck McKeever, Dean Rust, Gary Plaag, and Scipio Garling. Special coaches helped us shine – Geri Geis and Cindy Hansen. Current music and visual coaches are still an important part of the Harmonizer story and that list is like reading ‘most famous names’ from around the Society.

The growing music program yielded many quartets and some of them earned high marks in the barbershop contest world. Their successes led to more chapter and chorus successes as coaches and good musical arrangements came our way because of them. For sure we should mention the NOVA CHORDS with John Adams, Scott Werner,
Brian Rodda and Dick Whitehouse who took third in1976, and then VAUDEVILLE with John Casey Scott Werner, John Hohl, and Bill Cody who took a 2nd place in 1985.

But other chapter quartets helped the chapter make history such as PROFESSORS OF HARMONY, THE BUREAUCRATS; FRIENDSHIP FIRE COMPANY with Mike Everard always on bass and about a dozen leads and baritones over the years; HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES which is registered each year by the chapter and made up of our section leaders; and FOUR FROM THE HEART, which is a group of guys headed mostly by Bruce Lauther who will sing any time or place and do so several times a month.

Several members have earned district champ status, and some have earned the honor more than once:

1985 - ALEXANDRIA’S RAGTIME BAND – John Adams, Mike Wallen, Alan Durick, Craig Odell
1988 – COPYRIGHT 86 – Bill Colosimo, John Casey, Mike Wallen, Steve White
1996 – THE BAY RUM RUNNERS – Ed Cazenas, Lynn Conaway, Barry Galloway, Steve White
1997 – PREMIERE – Rick Savage, Fred Womer, Dennis Malone, Bill Clark
1999 – HIJINX – Gary Plaag, Will Cox, Howard Hull, Chip Guffey
2004 – PHAT CATS – Ed Cazenas, Scott Disney, Mike Pinto, Steve White
2005 – IGUANAS IN FLIGHT – Joe Sawyer, Tony Colosimo, Andrew Kay, Wayne Adams
2006 – FOUR ACES – Ed Cazenas, Nick Aiuto, Richard Lewellen, Scott Risley
2008 – NEW RELEASE – Ryan Griffith was tenor though not yet a member of our chapter
2009 – OLD SCHOOL – Rick Taylor, who also won with ARCADE in 1992.
2010 – TOUCHSTONE – Steve White was bass and Jay Butterfield was bari.
2011 – MAD HATTERS – Steve White was bass and Rick Taylor was bari.

More recently we have had some senior quartets earn high marks and one won the contest, REMINISCE in 1995 with John Adams, Scott Werner, Alan Durick and Dick Whitehouse. On the other side of the coin some of our younger members have done well in the collegiate quartet contest and ROADTRIP won the gold with Tony Colosimo on lead in 2007. Eric Wallen sang bass in CRUNCH TIME and earned 5th place in the 2008
collegiate contest.

Recently we launched CAPTAL FORCE – an ensemble of under-30-years-of-age barbershoppers from the Greater DC area. Tony Colosimo is director and Patrick Kim is administrator. The chapter held its fourth Youth Harmony Festival in 2011 and taught over 80 students – about half boys and half girls. 

The Alexandria Harmonizers have an important connection with the Alexandria Art Forum (a consortium of artists, arts organizations and advocates). Our involvement is significant as we are the largest organization and most widely known. 

If this brief and much consolidated Harmo History whets your interest, dig into your copy of our 50th anniversary book, “Breathless Moments.” [Members, ask for a copy if you don’t have one already.] Also you should check out the back portion of the Chapter Directory/ Roster regularly published by chapter secretary Chris Buechler. You will learn about who has served as Harmonizer president, or as chair of our auxiliary group. (It used to be The Harmonettes but was changed to FRIENDS IN HARMONY a few years ago.) The current chair is Sandy Stamps. And you will learn who has won the major chapter awards that we present each year.

You will also see that several of our members have been named to the Society Hall of Fame, and a lot of our guys have been inducted into the Mid-Atlantic District Hall of Honor, are members of the District Honor Chapter, DELASUSQUEHUDMAC; and are in the District Association of Quartet Champions (MADAQC).

As always, it is “great to be a Harmonizer!”

Compiled by Jack Pitzer 
with Chris Buechler, Alan Wile, and Steve White