One of FWCD’s Musical Greats: Bob Balch By Marsha Ghormley Rapfogel ’71
In September 1966, Fort Worth Country Day Headmaster Peter A. Schwartz asked Bob Balch to leave Kansas and come to Fort Worth to develop a music curriculum. Mr. Balch was charged with creating a program that was fun and inspiring at the same time. He taught two history classes and also started spring break trips to Washington, D.C., and skiing in Colorado.
The Art and Music departments shared a temporary building behind the Administration Building in the late ’60s. Lower School music met two times a week. On the Upper School level, Mr. Balch established the Glee Club, which sang in School and community events and nursing homes. At Christmas time, he and a couple of boys would load a piano in the back of a pick-up truck and the whole Glee Club would go caroling, followed by hot chocolate and cookies at the Schutts’ home. In those days Country Day had no “stage.” Glee Club performances took place at one end of the cafeteria (now the Sid W. Richardson Visual Arts Center) on a small raised platform. Gay Simmons Holsapple ’70 remembers standing next to Nancy Stuck ’70: “We were singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ and she and I cried through the whole thing! Sheesh!” Gay’s husband, Rex Holsapple ’70, was in a barbershop quartet with Mr. Balch, history teacher Howard Channell, and Steve Tatum ’72. Tatum remembers the quartet singing “Brighten the Corner Where You Are” during the summer in Tin Cup, Colorado. Martha Schutts Williams ’70 says: “He put me on the back row and asked me to just mouth the words!” Marsha Ghormley Rapfogel ’71 was recruited by Mr. Balch to be the Glee Club accompanist in grades 9-12. She credits Mr. Balch with inspiring her to become a music teacher. The Music Department mounted its first musical production, Bye Bye Birdie in the new Round Gym in 1970. Dialogue was coached by Tad Sanders. Students’ fathers pitched in to construct sets. Evelyn Siegel H’99 and her art students took care of set design. Quoting Mrs. Siegel from an interview in 1988: “Bob Balch had wonderful musicals in the gym and my art students designed and made all the scenery. Bye Bye Birdie and Oklahoma were not only visually smashing, they were musically great as well.”
During the 1970-71 school year, the Glee Club recorded an LP called For You a Song. At $4 per LP, it was a successful fundraiser to benefit an upcoming concert tour. But the student newspaper panned an all-grade-level performance by the same name in May 1968 for its three-hour length, calling it “For You a Song and a song and a ….” Quentin McGown ’74 says: “Mr. Balch, as director of the Glee Club and the musicals, made those years unforgettable. [He was a] Great teacher and friend.” Webster Dean ’74 adds: “Bob Balch recruited me into the Glee Club. Until that time I didn’t know that I had been born with a voice.” Mr. Balch recently returned to Fort Worth Country Day on April 18, 2013, to participate in “Love Is All You Need,” a panel discussion on the performing arts in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the School. Balch fondly remembers Spring Break ski trips with students, and his Timberline Trails Boys Camp in Tin Cup, Colorado. He says he never had a piano lesson in his life, but calls his ability a “gift from the Good Lord. I’ve been blessed with a great memory and ear for music. I can play most anything I’ve heard by ear.” Born in July 1923, Mr. Balch is 90 years young. He currently lives in a retirement community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He travels to seven retirement communities, leading “Sing-Along-With-Bob,” a program of singalongs, using a 77-page book of song-lyrics he created. He is a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa, and leads Gospel sing-alongs as well. Mr. Balch says it’s gratifying to bring joy and pleasure to people through music.