Our History
Founding of the Jeffersonland Barbershop Chorus
For a number of years a group of us (males) had been gathering around the piano at cocktail or dinner parties and singing. We were having a lot of fun and kept talking about starting a male singing group similar to Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians. Several years went by and nothing happened so I sent out about thirty invitations to some male singers to meet at radio station WCHV. About twenty did show up and as we were trying to figure out how to go about starting a singing group, Bud Hemphill came in with a satchel full of barbershop music. Bud had been director of the Capitol City Barbershop Chorus (which was also the Redskin Chorus that sang at the Redskins games). Bud convinced us to join the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America. Most of us had never heard of this organization but we decided to join in 1967. In March 1968 we were licensed by SPEBSQSA and in 1969 we were chartered as a chapter of SPEBSQSA . We had thirty five charter members and they included some outstanding citizens: Bob Barnhart was later Chancellor of North Carolina State University; Ned Slaughter later was Assistant US Attorney; Dr. Peyton Weary later chairman of the Dermatology Department at UVA and then President of the American Academy of Dermatology; Charles Henderson, chairman of the School of Engineering at UVA (my father-in-law); Atcheson Hench one of the leading authorities on English dictionaries; Pete Wallenborn chairman of the Monticello National Bank (and my father); Bud Hemphill was an executive of Sperry Rand; and Dr. Louis Brown an Orthodontist .We had our first sing-out at Farmington Country Club in 1968. Our first competition with John Clifford directing and our first show were in 1969. We have won six Small Chorus championships and three runner-ups in the Southern Division. We have been graciously allowed to rehearse at St. Mark Lutheran Church on Monday nights. We are the Jeffersonland Chorus of the Charlottesville Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Foundation (formerly SPEBSQSA). We have had a number of quartets through the years. One of the early Quartets was ”The Redcoats.” The bass was Bob Barnhart, the tenor was Earl Stauffer, Bill Rennolds was the lead and I was the baritone (we called ourselves Redcoats because Bill Rennolds gave us four red blazers to wear). We have had some great directors starting with Bud Hemphill followed by Bob Ellison, Buddy Johns, Bob Wheeler, Ken Ellis, and now Dave Rogers who is also an arranger. Our Quartets have been The Free Bridge Four, The Barbers of C-ville, Harmony Grits, Autumn Leaves, Blue Ridge Connection, Tom’s Boys, and many others. Well here it is forty two years later and we are still having fun!!
Ken WallenbornFounder, Jeffersonland chorus, 2009
