The Johnson City Civic Chorale

The Johnson City Civic Chorale was established in 1973 by Robert and Jane LaPella. Initially it had quite a number of Bob’s voice students, both previous and present, plus some supplemental singers from the nearby communities. It was a very fun and challenging group for me. In 1975 I was elected as the president of the group and I decided that making it an official non-profit organization would be the main goal of my year of responsibility. I asked the help of Mr. John Goodin, a local lawyer, with an office front on West Walnut Street. He was very happy to help the chorale on the condition that I sing for his church, which was a small Presbyterian church located on the Milligan Highway. I was happy to agree and did that a couple of times. John even played the organ for me a few times, for practice and fun. We finally received our official notice from the Tennessee State Government that our application was approved in 1976, and The Johnson City Civic Chorale became a Tax Exempt organization thereafter. John did most of the communication with the State government and he should be acknowledged here. Available in my files I find only one early picture. It was taken at Milligan College Auditorium, one of our regular performing sites, and the picture is certainly from that era.