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The Founders chorus
by David Thompson & Cliff Taylor
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The Founders Chorus - Chris Bowles, Director
As everyone reading this knows, the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America was founded in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1938 by 0. C. Cash and Rupert Hall, with Hall as President. Although the original venue was the Tulsa Club, the formal organization began its meetings right down the street at the Alvin Plaza Hotel. The following year, 1939, 150 men responded to a newspaper advertisement and raised their voices in harmony for a public sing. O.C. said that he organized the chapter 50 "tired businessmen could get away from their cares for a session of peaceful harmonizing."

1940 - President: O.E. MeClatchey
Meetings at the Mayo Hotel and the English Inn, The OKIE FOUR (Bill Downing, tenor; Frank Rice, lead; O.C. Cash, bari; and Frank Graves, bass), were the first of the first foursomes.

1941- President: Raymond Granger
THE CHORD BUSTERS (Doc Enmeier, tenor;
Bob Holbrook, lead; Bobby Greer, Bari; and Tom
Massengale, bass) win the National Quartet
Championship.

 1942- President: Bill Wortley

1943- President: Fred Schroeder
who was later replaced by L.C. Baston , because Schroeder's "sole facial hirsute accomplishment is a slighfly anemic mustache". Under the direction of Robert Greer the 1943 Tulsa chapter issued a challenge to the Detroit Barbershoppers, both claiming 141 members, to match them in a membership campaign.

1944- President: L.C. Baston

1945- President: Dr. Floyd E. Trippet
replaced by Dwight A. Olds. In February, somewhere in the Pacific, the Leatherneck Chapter of the Marine Corps started their chapter. One of their members was Pvt. Robert H. Holbrook of Tulsa, Okia., former member of the 1941 National Champions the CHORD BUSTERS.

1946- President: E. Guy Winningham
Meetings moved to the basement of the Akdar Building.
continued on Next Page



 
 
 
 
 
 


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