This week’s featured board member is Skip Balkenbusch. Skip joined our board in 2016. His son Cory was a member of FWCC for over 10 years. Skip grew up in Fort Wayne and attended Northside High School and IPFW. He was a member of the All City Choir, an organization that preceded the FWCC. He did a short stint on the trumpet and cello, followed by absorption into the football collective, but he remained active in all high school singing opportunities, including choir, barbershop quartet, folk group, a Chamber Choir equivalent, rock group and others. He sang in such famous venues as his shower and the car.
How long have you volunteered for FWCC?
I joined the board formally in 2016, and prior to that I volunteered every time my wife or Jonathan told me to.
What first got you engaged with FWCC? My son Cory joined the choir.
What were you most surprised to learn about FWCC after getting involved?
The upside to the technical quality of the music has been very cool.
Why do you think FWCC is important to our community?
Any youth organization that teaches team play, reaching for excellence, a dab of leadership and reinforces self-esteem is incredibly important as a broad set of values relevant to society.
What is your favorite FWCC memory?
Hearing music enjoyed by my father, sung by myself when I was a young adult, then sung by today’s choir in incomparable quality. Often this evokes tears.
Our involvement with FWCC has been a cool way to watch our children grow up together and spawn such healthy relationships