1970 - The Poets
Tenor: Steve Kurtz
Lead: Dick Clark
Baritone: Ray Heller
Bass: Ron Forsyth
In 1968, a man named Jerry Brown attended a barbershop meeting at the Mt. Baker Chapter in Bellingham, Washington. He had never heard of barbershop before and was very impressed with what he experienced at the chapter meeting. He became a member.
Jerry started listening to every singer in the Bellingham Chapter and taking notes. Then he began attending chapter meetings in Anacortes and listening to every singer there. From his notes, Jerry selected three voices that he wanted to sing with. There were two from Mt. Baker: Steve Kurtz, tenor, and Dick Clark, lead. From Anacortes, Jerry selected a young bass singer named Ron Forsyth. The foursome began rehearsing and thought they had a promising sound.
Around that time, a barbershopper named Ray Heller moved to Bellingham, where he worked in the same general area as tenor Steve Kurtz. He soon began singing with the Mt. Baker Toppers Chorus and Steve asked Ray if he would listen to his new quartet rehearse and offer any suggestions that he might have. Ray had no particular expertise, but gladly accepted the offer.
At that time, in Evergreen District’s Division One, a quarterly novice quartet contest was held, each hosted by one of the division’s chapters, on a rotating basis. The new quartet decided that they sounded good enough to warrant entering one of these contests, and so, when the next one was held, which happened to be hosted by one of the Canadian chapters in the Vancouver, B. C. area, the four of them got into a car and headed north.
On the way to Canada, one of the quartet members suggested that the foursome needed a name; they couldn’t enter a contest without a name. Jerry Brown suggested that the quartet should be named The POETS; the letters were an abbreviation of the phrase “Phooey On Everything, Tomorrow’s Saturday.” The other three guys decided that was a great idea, and the quartet was named.
Later, Jerry found that he had to leave the quartet, and Ray Heller was asked to fill in at baritone. The quartet won the Evergreen District Championship in 1970.
