|
Glenn Wood, BDAO Founder
1915 - 2007
Originally written in December of 2005 to honor Glenn’s 90th Birthday
Mr. Wood was born and raised in the small southwestern Wisconsin town of South Wayne in 1915. With just 50 students in the entire South Wayne School, Mr. Wood graduated with the Class of 1934. There were only 10 members in the whole senior class. (That certainly is one way to graduate in the top 10 of your class!) At his mother’s insistence, Mr. Wood attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison. As long as he was going to school, his father insisted that he learn to play the violin. As a UW freshman, Wood auditioned for and made both the University of Wisconsin Orchestra as a violinist and the second UW concert band as a cornet player.
Graduating from UW Madison in 1939, Glenn married his childhood sweetheart Marion. This year marked 66 years of marriage for the Woods. After World War II and service in the army, Glenn worked as the band and orchestra director in Belleville, Wisconsin. In 1953, he was offered a job teaching music in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. It was a position that he would hold until his retirement in 1975. During his career in Beaver Dam, Mr. Wood developed a reputation for disciplined and talented ensembles. When the University of Wisconsin Orchestra director Marvin Rabin contacted Glenn about the creation of the new Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra, eight Beaver Dam High School string players became a part of the very first WYSO Orchestra.
During his first year in the Beaver Dam district, Mr. Wood was asked by the city to create a community orchestra that could meet during the winter months opposite the summer community band. The Beaver Dam Recreation Orchestra (now the Beaver Dam Area Orchestra) was created in the fall of 1954 and Mr. Wood remained its music director for 37 years.
Former students look upon their time with Mr. Wood with fondness and gratitude and even though he has been out of the teaching profession for 30 years, they still call him up or visit him in his home on a regular basis. Many of them still meet with Glenn on Tuesday nights for a weekly “jam” session. Glenn always remembers their names and can vividly recall stories of their time in his bands and orchestras. Glenn is a humble man and is constantly amazed when these former students, now in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, express to him their gratitude for the years they had him as a teacher. It is a fitting and wonderful tribute to a man who has touched so many lives during a public career that spanned more than 35 years.
Richard Zeman
| 
