Looking Back on the May 22-23 Southern Division Contest and Convention

Wow – there were Harmonizers everywhere for this weekend contest and convention at the Reston Hyatt.

In the one-round quartet contest on Friday evening, FORECAST with Mike Fitch, Tyler Rackley, Travis Murray and Dan Cook took first place.  This makes the 14^th year in a row that a quartet with at least one Harmonizer member has won the contest!!  They earned 75.4 percent.

Another Harmonizer quartet took second place – YOUTH RECLAMATION PROJECT with Mike Wallen, Roger Tarpy, Hardman Jones and Vic Owen Jr. earning 72.1 percent.  These guys also won the senior’s contest held in conjunction with the division contest.

Third place quartet was LoCo 4 – all friends from neighboring chapters we have seen at the annual Dog Days event each year.

Fourth place was our own guys, BRAVADO with Doug White, Kevin McKenzie, Chris Odell and Todd Ryktarsyk.  Great first time shot for this foursome and they earned 69.7 percent.

HANDSOME REWARD with John Reece, Mike Edison, Vince Lynch and Michael Gilmore took fifth place with 66.1 percent.

Sam McFarland’s new quartet, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN, took eighth as well as second in the senior’s contest. Brian Ammerman sang in two quartets:  LAST PITCH EFFORT along with Steve Murane was ninth, and MISFIRE was eleventh. MISFIRE was named division novice champ quartet in the contest.

Harmonizers Bill Colosimo was emcee for the quartet contest and Dennis Ritchey was emcee for the Saturday chorus contest. There were 11 choruses in the contest and six of them were directed by current or former Harmonizers: Richard Lewellen with Fairfax. Gary Bibens with Harrisonburg, Kris Zinkievich with Germantown, Mike Wallen with Richmond, Bill Colosimo with DC and Brian Allen with Norfolk.

Richmond won the chorus contest with a score of 70.8 percent.

Interesting was the number of current or former Harmonizers, in addition to the directors named above, who sang on the contest stage with other choruses: Harold Weinberger and Sam McFarland with Fairfax; Chuck Botts with Carroll County; Gary Bibens, Michael Calhoun and Dewey Feuerhelm with Harrisonburg; Mike Edison with Germantown, Frank Beahm with Smith Mountain Lake; Mike Giepel, Paul Lensch and Jim McConnell with Richmond; and Bob Hirsh, Alan Hanenbaum and Bob Wells with DC.

Some of our guys also sang in the mic tester chorus: Carl Kauffmann, Brian Ammerman, Bob Wachter, Chris Buechler, Alan Hanenbaum. Two former members were on the judging panel: Steve Tramack who also has arranged several of our important new songs, and Joe Sawyer who sings with DACAPO.

The Saturday nite show of champions featured a number of our folks as listed above plus MAYHEM with Matt Fellows, Pookie Dingle, Mike Pinto and Ken White was also featured guest quartet.

The Fairfax Chapter was hosts for this weekend’s convention.  Mike Kelly and Carl Kauffmann are on the events team that helps run the contests, and Gary Plaag is district vp for contests. Our guys on the district board include Bill Colosimo, IPP; Dennis Ritchey, exec vp; Bob Eckman, treasurer; Keith Jones, secretary; and Chuck Harner, member at large.

Official contest scores are posted on midatlanticdistrict.com website. (Thanks for notes from Dixie Kennett, Keith Jones and Alan Wile for this report! YeEd)

In other news, the Atlantic Division was held May 15-16 in Cherry Hill and our own Dan O’Brien was a music judge.

The Western and Northern Division contests will be June 5-6, also in Cherry Hill, and two Harmo quartets are on the list for that one: WAREHOUSE FLATS with Brett Thomas, Jay Butterfield, Adam Porter and Steve White; and HERSHEY TRANSIT CO. with Bill Kent, Pookie Dingle, Frank Resek and Steven Matuszewski

Until next time – editorjack!

(This message is prepared for your review if you were there, for your information if you had to miss, and as a historical record of the great things going on each week during the 67^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.