Stanton Young Award
The Barbershopper Of The Year (BOTY) award may be presented, annually, to a member of the chorus, who in the opinion of the membership, has done the most to benefit the chapter during the year. All members of the chorus are eligible to receive the award.
However, in 2015, instead of voting for a Barbershopper Of The Year recipient, it was decided to award the Stanton Young Memorial award. This award is the chapter’s equivalent to the BOTY award, except that it isn’t done through the Society.
Copied below is the text of a short presentation that Donald Burns (2014 BOTY recipient) prepared for president Louis Jacob to deliver when he presented the Stanton Young Memorial Award to Joe Hayden during the 2016 chapter installation banquet. As you will see, Joe was the very first (and, so far, the last) winner.
Not too long ago I was poking through some Coachmen archives—yes we do have archives and some of them are quite fascinating—and I stumbled across the Stanton Young Memorial Plaque.
Well, this discovery raised some questions, such as: who was Stanton Young? Why does he have a memorial plaque? Why haven’t any of our members received a Stanton Young memorial award so that their names can be inscribed on the plaque?
Well, I got some answers from Ken Volk. It turns out that Mr. Young was a beloved member of the Coachmen for a long, long time and served as secretary for 35 years or so. In fact, the chapter’s original corporate document shows him as the first-listed founding member of the Coachmen back in 1957. His dedication to the Coachmen was so highly regarded that the members decided to create an award in his honor so that later members of the chapter could be recognized for their outstanding contributions to our group.
So why has nobody ever received the Stanton Young award during all these years? Well, the answer to that is lost in the mists of time, but what I do know is that we are going to correct that omission tonight. Right now I am pleased to announce the very first Stanton Young Memorial Award to a valued member whose contributions for the last 35 years have meant so much to us all—indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that his hard work has literally kept us in business.
Joe Hayden has been deeply involved in everything we do—from promoting the chorus in every way imaginable, from beating the bushes to get people and organizations to hire us to sing for them, to making Singing Valentines a success, to acquiring and overseeing our music, not to mention his important role in chapter quartets —but the two accomplishments I’m most familiar with are the annual show which has been a creative success, and the terrific program book that he has been responsible for putting together, with the ads that make the annual show a financial success. Both of these require a heck of a lot of creativity and patience and many, many hours of really hard work, and I just don’t know how he’s done it. But I’m very thankful that he did.
Joe has retired from managing the annual show—2015 was his last—but he has generously agreed to continue with the very difficult job of supervising and coordinating the program book for the annual show.
So without further ado, on behalf of the Concord Coachmen I hereby declare Joe Hayden to be the first winner of the Stanton Young Memorial Award.
[after applause, presentation, etc.]
Now some of you with sharp eyes may have noticed that the plaque has a minor typo. Instead of saying “Stanton” Young, it says “Stanley” Young. I gave some thought to having the typo corrected, but somehow it seemed wrong to mess with history—this was the plaque prepared by our predecessor brothers in harmony and it didn’t seem right to change it. Besides which, those who knew him tell me that Stan Young had a great sense of humor.
