History

History of the Golden Voices

From Dr. Randy Lofgren:

In the fall of 1965 I first took the reins, so long held by Ken Howard, of the entire choral program at Waco High School. I had worked with the junior choirs in a joint capacity with Ken in the 64-65 school year.

As I began to think of how to create distinctive indications of a new day under my baton (which was difficult, given the outstanding performance of WHS choirs for decades) I thought it would be interesting to produce an album of choral Christmas music to be sold to the community. When I began to work with the custom academic recording label it just somehow didn't get it to say "Century Recording presents an album of Christmas music by the Senior Chorus of Waco High School."

I had been successful in acquiring new gold robes for the choir that fall and I reflected on the school colors being gold and white. I asked the recording company representative about commercializing the title somewhat, playing down the company and emphasizing the choir. The rep said that would be fine but that no one in the United States was doing that about which he was aware. That was all I needed to hear.

So, when the album came out the title on the cover was "Sing We Now of Christmas by the Golden Voices of Waco High." The rest is history as they say. The #1 choir carried that name for as long as I was conducting and for a few years after that until it fell out of vogue. My last concert as conductor of the Golden Voices was at graduation in Waco Hall in May of 1971.