On this page: Betty Busch, Jerry Bowman, Gale Hazel, Gary Tiedeman, Ken Gryte, Virginia Stockwell, Brett DeYoung, Amy Gilson

Betty Busch sang in the Corvallis Repertory Singers’ first concert. Except for a three-year hiatus when she had scheduling conflicts, she’s been in the soprano section ever since.
      Betty began singing as a toddler and remembers singing harmony to the Burl Ives records her mother used in the pre-school where she taught. Betty began her instrumental career with the trumpet, but, at age 12, heard a French horn in a Mendelssohn symphony and said, “Whatever that is, I want to play it.” She has played horn with the Newport and Corvallis Symphonies and recently filled a chair for the Chintimini Chamber series. She remembers sitting on the piano bench with her Mother trying to make the connection between the notes she saw on the page of music with the piano keys. Today, she “gets it,” and is often praised by other singers for her musical knowledge and her accurate pitch.
      When she’s not singing with CRS, Betty directs several choral groups. She is director of music at the Corvallis First United Methodist Church and was the founding director of Jubilate!, a women’s choral group started fifteen years ago that has grown to 60 voices and can be heard in concerts in Corvallis and other parts of Oregon throughout the year. Betty also directs Breve, a smaller ensemble of Jubilate! voices.
In addition to her musical life, Betty volunteers at Chintimini Wildlife Refuge where she is a raptor handler, often showing off the hawk that was injured in an altercation with a speeding car. She rafts wild rivers, cross-country skis, and hikes Oregon trails with friends.
       Betty earned her first music degree from the University of Northern Colorado, taught junior high band in South Dakota for four years, then received a grad degree in instrumental conducting from the Ohio State University.

Jerry Bowman has been a solid presence in the tenor section since the very beginning. He started singing as a boy in Falls City, Oregon and acknowledges the influence and encouragement of two tenors who were choral directors in his high school years.
     Many people in the Corvallis area recognize Jerry as the guy who had his hands in their mouths during his 32-year dental practice. Jerry retired in 1996 and has listened to people talk to him in words he can understand instead of the mumblings he heard during years of dental appointments when he talked and they listened. Those hands stay busy tying trout and salmon flies and making pickles.
    When he’s not singing with CRS and the Presbyterian Church Choir, Jerry is working to maintain the 22 acres surrounding his house—the Thomas Read House (the oldest continuously inhabited residence in Benton County, built in 1854). Jerry re-lives Oregon history the moment he steps out his back door and sets foot on his part of the original Applegate Trail (or California Trail) which historians claim is still well preserved and undamaged by modern times.
     Jerry loves to sing. As an undergrad at OSU, he sang in a large choir, but didn’t try out for the Choralaiers because he didn’t have enough money for the white dinner jacket it required. He has made four European choir trips and sang once in Carnegie Hall. He’s serious about his music and says that once Steve Zielke announces what CRS will be singing, he spends a couple of hours each day practicing and preparing for the concert.
    Jerry and his wife, Sue, have seven adult children and seven grandchildren between them. Sue is a regular CRS fan.

Gale Hazel says she probably came out of the womb singing. Both her parents were singers and the sounds of the Big Band era filled their home. That’s probably one of the reasons Gale belts out  musical stage and big-band solos with such style and flair.
Gale joined CRS in the early years and has held down a solid spot in the alto section ever since. She also serves as President of the Corvallis Repertory Singers Board of Directors.
    Fans of  CRS have seen Gale in numerous musical presentations in the Corvallis area since she arrived at OSU to continue the voice study which she began at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Gale was in the first choir at OSU directed by Ron Jeffers. Another area teacher who had a powerful influence on her singing was Gwen Leonard, currently a faculty member at Linfield College.
    Gale’s first big musical theater role in Corvallis was as Ginnie, Anya, Ilse, & Evie in Stop the World I Want to Get Off!––one part that embodied four separate characters. Other roles followed, but three of her favorites were Marian the Librarian, in Music Man, Eliza Doolittle, in My Fair Lady, and the title role in Bizet's Carmen. There are other roles she says she would be eager to fill, especially if it were one in a Stephen Sondheim production. Gale said that singing a solo for the Mozart Mass in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in 1991 was, “thrilling, terrifying, and awe-inspiring.”
    Oregon State University faculty remember Gale handling lots of arrangements for special events out of the President’s Office. The retired faculty know that she was one of the original organizers of the OSU Retirement Association..
     When she’s not singing, Gale stays busy raising two boys and doing marketing and other tasks for TriAxis Engineering, where her spouse, Paul, is V.P.

Gary Tiedeman started singing choral music when he was a high school junior. He hasn’t stopped since. Gary retired as chair of the Sociology Department at OSU in 2003 and has stayed busy since then driving for Dial-a-Bus, helping his wife, Libby, with several dogs at obedience trial competitions, volunteering to do clerical work at the library, and has served as treasurer and president of the board for Corvallis Repertory Singers.
    Gary joined CRS in its second year and describes his CRS experience as a member of the bass section as, “an opportunity to perform excellent highly demanding music conducted by an extremely capable and effective director, with fellow singers who are uniformly good performers.” Choral music fans will also spot Gary in the Presbyterian Church choir and will remember him when he sang with the Corvallis Town Choir.
    Once a sociologist, always a sociologist—Gary has even written papers exploring communication patterns between dogs and their trainers (how’s that for combining scholarship with a personal interest). Singing remains a rich source of pleasure in his life especially singing the Mozart Mass in the Great Hall at the Moscow Conservatory in the Soviet Union. As an undergrad at the University of Colorado, Gary was part of a production of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast. He says it was great to be in that performance again with CRS. Last season Gary fulfilled another long-held ambition of singing Carmina Burana whenCRS joined forces with OSU choirs and the Corvallis-OSU Symphony.
    The theatrical stage has called Gary too. Some will remember his roles as George in Virginia Woolf, Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind, and in other community and OSU productions.
Gary and his wife, Libby, have two adult children.

Ken Gryte sang his first solo when he was five. He didn’t get hooked on choral work until junior high school, but it’s been central since then. After listening to the first performance of the Corvallis Repertory Singers, he told Steve Zielke, “I want to join your group!” (He was pretty emphatic.) Following tryouts, he made it as a second bass and has been that smiling face behind the neatly trimmed goatee and moustache ever since.
    Ken says, “I love to sing.” He also loves to cook and travel, and recently returned from a three-week trip to Scandinavia where he met relatives and planted his feet on the Norwegian soil of the 300 year-old family farm—“It was a powerfully emotional experience.”
Ken and his wife, Marilyn, both have graduate degrees in counseling from OSU. Ken is owner and director of Calapooia Employee Assistance and Marilyn has her own counseling practice in Albany. They have two adult daughters and a three-year old grandson who calls Ken “Poppy,” (Marilyn says it makes him smile.)
    In a former life, Ken earned a Master of Divinity degree. He served several years as a Protestant minister in that coastal state south of Oregon.
    Ken serves as treasurer of the CRS Board. He stays active with daily walks, having slowed down from his days as a record holding high school middle distance runner. Ken likes to do things well—perhaps that’s the reason he works so hard with CRS (he also might be trying to erase that A- in voice which ruined the 4.0 his final quarter in college).

Virginia Stockwell says, “I don’t remember not singing.” She grew up in New Jersey in a musical family and sang in church choirs from an early age. Choral music also was part of Virginia’s high school and college experience (as was varsity softball at Rutgers University). In Corvallis, Virginia is a founding member of the women’s choir Jubilate! and the smaller auditioned group, Breve.
    Virginia enjoys working with Steve Zielke and the classical repertoire of CRS. “I loved singing the Rachmaninoff Vespers, as well as the recent Bach/Beethoven concert.” Notorious for lending her rich tones to the alto section, Virginia actually began her choral career as a first soprano. In high school, she reveled in the soaring “King of Kings,” singing first soprano in Handel’s Messiah. After catching an ill-timed cold, Virginia, with her signature stoicism, sang the performance anyway, but as a second alto. She has been a low alto ever since.
    Many know Virginia as a dedicated scientist working on biological control of bacterial plant diseases. Virginia came to OSU in 1984 after completing her Ph. D. in Plant Pathology at Colorado State University. She collaborates with a group of international colleagues who meet somewhere in the world every three years. Those travels have included Switzerland, Greece, New Zealand, Italy, Mexico, Canada, India, Germany, and Turkey.
    Virginia has played slow-pitch softball with the same team for 20 years. She and partner Lauren Ohlgren, a local artist, enjoy hiking, cross-country skiing, rafting, and spending time with their adult children.

Amy Gilson has been in the soprano section of the Corvallis Repertory Singers since the group’s second year. She earned her undergraduate degree from OSU in vocal performance and conducting. She also plays woodwinds (except for bassoon). During her undergraduate years, Amy participated in the small jazz ensembles and was an original member of the vocal jazz group, the “Black Tie Ensemble.”
    A cut in the school choral director’s position reduced Amy’s opportunity to sing much in high school. Now, in addition to CRS, she sings with Jubilate! and with the smaller auditioned group, Breve.
    Amy enjoys good choral ensemble: “I love the energy of a group of people coming together to perform.” A favorite composer is Arvo Pärt, an Estonian composer of technically demanding music. She sang Pärt’s Magnificat with OSU’s Chamber Choir in the early 1990s and says, “I still hear moments from that work in my head; the sound of it stays with me, years later.”
    Amy also earned an MBA which helps with her job as a procurement officer with ImTech, Inc., an engineering firm in Corvallis. She supported herself in college working graveyard shift in a clean room at H-P.
    Amy’s first conducting experience was as an 8th grader conducting an end-of-year band performance. There are musical performance moments she would rather forget, including having the power go out in the middle of a duet she was singing during a CRS performance.
As a serious computer gamer, Amy, and her boyfriend, Lee (a computer programmer) compete and hang out with other gamers all over the world. Amy and Lee share their home with two cats—Fezzik and Inigo.

To read more bios, click on the names below:

Bio Page 2: Karen Drouhard, Paul Pritchard, David Hockman-Wert, Patty Gerig, Anna Rikli, Joseph Battrick, Emily Thielen-Mercado, Pete Butler

Bio Page 3: Julie Manning, Josh Seitz, Judy Corwin, Bruce Hauge