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Bill Hamilton - 65 Years
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Calendar, Org., press block, BD's & Anniv.
2
What is our future (editorial) / want ad
3
Board Meeting / special "futures" meeting
5
Multiple chapter meeting
6
Multiple chapter meeting - photo montage
7
HOD report / Mem. Service, A Spaminato
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We perform
9
Darlene Parker run / Who are these guys? / Quiz
10
BHS logo survey / Mission & Vision
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Answer page
12
The Pitchburgh Press
Official Bulletin of the
GREATER PITTSBURGH, PA. CHAPTER
VOL.XXIII, NO. 3 MAY- JUNE, 2005

(Most of the Photos and Graphics have been omitted to allow quicker download for Website version.
This version is not a true copy of the original Bulletin.)

Bill Hamilton - 65 years of Barbershop Singing

Bill Hamilton

One man who needs no special introduction is Bill Hamilton. Bill has been singing barbershop with the Pittsburgh chapter for about 65 years and is our only remaining charter member. I must say "about" 65 years because in the early days of our Society, record keeping was not very exact. Bill started singing with the Pittsburgh chapter back in 1940. However, the charter of the Pittsburgh chapter was granted April 27, 1941 and Bill's Society membership card shows his sixty-fifth year to begin Dec 31, 2005. The Society presented his 50-year pin sometime in Oct.1991. Get the picture?

Regardless of these slight anomalies in date, your editor decided it was an appropriate time to do an updated "bio" on Bill. The information in this column was gathered from the archives of the Pitchburgh Press, a taped interview with Bill done by Society member Max Brandt on March 24, 2002, and by recent interviewing of Bill.

Bill (William Russell Hamilton) was born in Pittsburgh May 26,1920. An only child, Bill originally lived on Pittsburgh's north side, Perrysville Ave., and his grandfather had a bar on Federal Street. in 1928, following the opening of the Liberty Tubes, his family moved to Berkshire Ave. in Brookime. Bill attended Brooklme elementary and graduated from South Hills High School. Like most of us, Bill is of mixed lineage. On his father's side, grandfather Hamilton came from Ireland. On his mother's side, his lineage is French and German (Minery & KoIb).

Bill relates that he had no specific music background except that he remembers the family always gathered around the piano and sang while his aunt played. He took piano lessons himself for about two years but gave it up because they could not afford to buy the accordion that he really wanted to learn to play.

The first singing performance that he can recall was when he was 10 years old and sang the lead in a school play called "The shoemaker and the elves." He remembers that he often sang in school plays.

See Bill Hamilton... continued on page 4

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