Posted By: Tony Adams 8.22.16

I had a reunion of sorts on July 26th when Kurt Chalgran, former vocal music teacher at FDHS visited me here in Hilo, Hawaii. He was in the islands with his family to celebrate he and Barbara's 50th wedding anniversary and flew over from Honolulu to spend the day with me. Wow....what a great and fun day of memories. We had a great lunch at the Imiloa Astronomy Center and then went to Volcano National Park with a good friend of mine who acted as out tour guide. Ah....we talked of our days in FD and what came later. I got to share much of my career in music with Kurt and gave him a couple CDs of music I recorded over the years. It was great to reminisce of the good ole days when life was simpler and we all looked forward to the future.

I did some work with Donald Walker in California when he was conductor of a large community choir and we have stayed in touch. Both Don and Kurt were very influential in my pursuit of a career in music and their inspirations stayed with me throughout the years. Many times, I found myself chuckling a bit when I was working somewhere in the world and thought about my beginnings in Fort Dodge and how my path in life took me to great places and working with great people. I was very busy in the last of the "hey-days" in Hollywood and made many good friends over those years and worked with the best musicians in the world. Needless to say, for this kid who started life on an Iowa farm, my life has been very interesting and filled with wonderful people. Hope to see ya at the reunion.