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Post entering state music hall

By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer
reporter@arkcity.net

Geuda Springs musician-songwriter Bill Post will be inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame on Saturday in Lawrence.

Post is familiar to Arkansas City area residents for the musical heritage museum he opens each year to guests at his family farm west of town.

He will be the first recipient of a lifetime achievement award in a ceremony at 7 p.m. at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, he said today.

"It makes me feel wonderful," Post said of being selected for the award. "I couldn't believe it."

The Kansas Music Hall of Fame was established in 2004 to recognize the talents and efforts of musicians in the state of Kansas and in the greater metropolitan Kansas City area, according to a letter sent to Post.

Friends of the 88-year-old Post will take him to Lawrence to receive the award tomorrow evening, he said.

"You are being inducted for your long career and many achievements as the first recipient of the Bob Hapgood Award named for one of the founding board members," a letter from KMHOF president Bill Lee said.

Hapgood was a McPherson radio personality and band leader of a group called King Midas and the Muflers.

"He was a big fan of yours," Lee said in the letter. "He and I campaigned for your induction."

Post said he remembers meeting Hapgood when he stopped in Lawrence years ago on a promotional tour.

In 2007, Post was honored in a ceremony at Mt. Hope United Methodist Church. In that ceremony, he listened to a tape recorded message from singer Connie Stevens thanking him for writing "16 Reasons," a song that helped make her famous, he said.

Stevens recorded song, which was written by Post and his first wife, Doree, who died of cancer in 1961. The song was featured in the 2001 movie, "Mulholland Drive."

Also in 2007, Post attended the 70th reunion of his high school class, the Arkansas City High School Class of 1937.

At age 19, Post left his family farm west of Arkansas City and headed for New York City. The year was 1939, and Post had only $100 earned from the wheat harvest in his pocket.

He planned to audition in New York to appear on that day's version of "American Idol." It was a nationally broadcast radio program called "Major Bowes' Amateur Hour."

Though he didn't win an audition as a young Frank Sinatra, part of a quartet singing group, had a few years before, Post did take the first step in an exciting musical career as a singer-songwriter, he said.

Post can boast of many accomplishments, including being the composer of Kansas' official state march, "Here's Kansas."

Though Post worked in various entertainment jobs including as a member of an Air Force special services unit that entertained troops in India and Burma during World War II, his career didn't take off until after he married his first wife, Doree, in 1947, he said.

The couple formed a songwriting team that produced several songs that were recorded by nationally known artists including Connie Stevens, The Lettermen, Eddie Cochran, Bobbie Vee and Lawrence Welk.

Bill wrote the lyrics and Doree wrote the music, he said.

In 1961, Doree died of cancer. Doree is buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Bill met his second wife, Orvaleen, in 1970, after viewing a movie that he said had changed his life. He had seen the movie, "The Restless One," made by evangelist Billy Graham, at the Burford Theatre in Ark City.

After they married, Orvaleen attended theology school in Kansas City and was ordained a United Methodist minister. She was a pastor at churches in this area for 20 years.

The couple opened the museum on the Post family homestead in 1990. There also is a chapel on the farm, in which Orvaleen performed 25 weddings before her death in February 2005.

Visitors flock to Post's farm 8 1/2 miles west of Arkansas City, on U.S. 166, for an annual, free tour of the Post Musical Homestead, a museum on his property.

Above: Bill Post shows some of his records at his museum in Geuda Springs.