Jean Carmichael

Jean grew up just outside of New York City and studied piano through her college years. She also sang in the glee club and choir in both high school and college. She graduated from Sweet Briar College and later received her Master of Science Degree from Springfield College. After graduaton, she and her then husband moved to Spain for 8 years where both of her sons were born.

Upon returning to the States. Jean began her career with the YMCA, serving as an Executve Director in Charlotesville, VA, Dallas, TX and Los Angeles, CA. She then became CEO of the Santa Maria Valley YMCA and finally retred after 37 years as Vice President of the Fort Worth Associaton. Feeling that she had had enough moving around, Jean decided to call Fort Worth her home. Stll connected to the YMCA, she serves on the Natonal Board of YMCA Alumni.

Jean fills her tme reading, exercising, enjoying the local museums, and lying in the hammock. She has 2 sons and daughters-in-law and 3 grandchildren.

Linda Hines

Linda loves to sing so much that she went online looking for a choir. (Spring 2017) When she found out the Gold Tones entertain for retirement centers, she knew she had found the perfect choir for her. When her mother was in the nursing facility, the musical groups were her most favorite activity. Now, Linda gets to bring music to the retirement community in memory of her Mom.

One of Linda's most influential teachers in high school was her choir teacher. Linda sang in select choirs and ensembles where Mrs. Bryant taught performance skills and demanded choral excellence. She went on to sing in choirs and ensembles in college at Southern Nazarene University, Bethany, Oklahoma. Her father was a pastor, so she grew up singing in church and continued to do so throughout her adult life.

Being the Director of the Heavenly-Son-Light Choir was Linda's most rewarding role in church music. She founded and directed the childrens choir for twenty-three years, leading them in two musicals a year. These were full-scale productions with music, drama, costumes, backdrops, and props. She loved teaching kids the joy of singing for God. Those were the best years of her musical life!

As for her career, Linda worked as a graphic artist for Radio Shack, and Harcourt Brace Textbook Publishers, among others. When she started in her field everything was done by hand. But in 1991 she went to the Art Institute of Dallas to learn computer skills.

Linda's husband, Murray, had a 40-year career at Bell Helicopter in management. They have been married 52 years, have two sons and a daughter (by birth), their spouses, one son (not by birth, but by heart), and eleven grandchildren. They love, Fort Worth, their adopted hometown!

Susan Hoffman

Susan Hoffman became director of Gold Tone Senior Show Choir in the Spring of 2023. A lifetime of music participation is fueling her joy at being a part of this wonderful, joyful, missional group.

She is a graduate of Texas Woman's University with a degree in Music Therapy and Boston University with an M. Div degree. Susan is now a retired United Methodist pastor having settled in Fort Worth in 2005.

Throughout her career in both Music Therapy and ministry she has participated in and led music groups. Presently, she plays handbells in a local church and bass recorder in a recorder chamber group and sings with the Harmony Club of Fort Worth which meets at the Fort Worth Woman's Club.

Bob Krause

Bob was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and got his Electrical Engineering degree from BYU and his MBA from ASU in Arizona. After working for a number of electric power companies, he went out on his own as an independent consultant handling clients throughout the U.S. for 15 years and then developing contracts with USAID and the State Department in foreign countries (Pakistan, Egypt, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan).

Eventually tiring of travel and warzones, Bob retired but stays involved in family businesses (his wife, Barb,owns a travel agency and they own a beauty salon) and spends time with his twin grandkids.

Bob's interest in music started when his grandfather bought him a guitar when he was 10 years old. He moved on from folk music to pop, show tunes, choir music, barbershop, and classical.

Carole Miller

Carole was born at Langley Field, Virginia, where her father was stationed during World War II. The family moved to West Texas where she grew up in a family that loved music. She started taking piano lessons in the 2nd grade and continued until graduation from high school. She grew up singing in church choirs and in the A Capella choir at Midland High School. She and her sisters always sang at family reunions whenever there was a talent show.

Carole graduated from Texas Tech and taught first and second graders for 38 years, retiring 14 years ago to move back to the family home to help her sister care for their mother who had Alzheimers. Carole is one of the newest Gold Tone members, joining in January after moving with her 2 sisters to Ft. Worth to be closer to family. She saw on the Next Door Candleridge app that the choir needed new members, so the three sisters decided to come to a rehearsal and check it out and are enjoying putting singing back into their lives again. Singing is almost always accompanied by a smile! We have had two gigs and like the new music that we are learning for our next one.

Carole also enjoys get-togethers with family and friends, playing the piano, sewing, and traveling. She loves her new home in Ft. Worth and the fact that there is so much to do in the DFW area.

Stephen Rookard

Stephen has had a deep voice all his life. As a teenager he would scare many a mother with a voice that sounded well beyond his years when calling for a date. Though he never studied music, he did get a Bachelor of Arts in Radio-TV as he put his outstanding voice to use in college as an announcer & DJ at the campus of UTEP. He worked 28 years with AT&T and its affiliates, including several years doing voice overs on long distances announcements for all of AT&T and using his voice for call answering prompts.

Stephen also developed his speaking skills with Toastmasters for seven years, serving as president three years. His wife was a scholarship winner in Music at Texas Tech. She was a soprano that joined the Goldtones Choir four months before he did. Not sure of his talent for singing, but at her urging, he ventured out into the world of singing. Stephen brings a deep, low bass voice much enjoyed by those that hear him. He seems to be a keeper.

Alfred Situmorang

Accompanist

Alfred Situmorang is an Indonesian pianist. He currently pursues his DMA (Doctoral of Musical Arts) degree in Piano Performance & Pedagogy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS)-School of Church Music & Worship in Fort Worth, Texas. He has performed numerous solo piano recitals as well as collaborative performances with choirs, chamber music ensembles, and orchestras across the US since 2015. He performed in concerts recently (April 2023) with opera singers for Opera Arlington. At Southwestern, Alfred works as Staff Accompanist for Southwestern Acapella, the premier vocal ensemble at SWBTS School of Church Music & Worship. He also works as a teaching fellow at Southwestern Music Academy. Alfred is one of the recipients of the MTNA (Music Teachers National Association) Collegiate Grant at the 2019 MTNA National Conference in Spokane, Washington. He maintains his active collegiate membership in MTNA, as well as in the local chapter FWMTA (Fort Worth Music Teachers Association). He also serves as Artist-in-Residence (Intern Pianist) at First Baptist Church of Burleson, Texas, where he and his wife , Ervina, and their sons are active members.

Besides doing his doctoral study, Alfred leads his family collaborative group "Situmorang & Sons" with his two boys: Frederic Situmorang (piano) and Franz Situmorang (singer). They occasionally perform classical music as part of church music ministry in the Fort Worth area. Alfred recently joined the Gold Tone Senior Show Choir as accompanist in July 2023.

Joyce Whitley

Joyce was born in Jal, New Mexico and moved to Midland Texas before first grade. She attended public schools and graduated from Texas Tech with a secondary education degree with emphasis on English. She lived in California for one year and then came back to Texas. She taught English to eighth graders for 33 years and guesses that she taught somewhere around 4500 teenagers. She loved that age group and liked to think that she made an impact on their lives as they did hers.

She was a single parent to three wonderful children and she now has seven grandchildren who are the lights of her life. Five of them live in this area and two live in Houston. She always looks forward to the summers when they would all come to her house for "Camp Grammy." Being closer to them and her children is what prompted her to move to Fort Worth. One sister lived in Arlington and one with her in Midland so they decided to buy a house together in Fort Worth. She loves being closer to family and not having to travel five hours to see them. She also loves waking in the morning and being able to say good morning to her two best friends.

Her sister saw the notice for the Gold Tone choir wanting new members and suggested that they might like to "check it out".. They did and, as the saying goes "The rest is history." She sings alto and enjoys it very much. Never did she imagine that she would be a part of a show choir, replete with costumes, but she is and she loves it.

David Wright

David and his wife, Deborah, settled in Fort Worth from Los Angeles in 1978. Their son, Seth, works as a 9-1-1 call dispatcher for MedStar. David's first born son, Bruce, is a computer animator for Disney.

Encouraged by his mother's piano style and singing as well as her musical parents he learned the art of entertaining at a very young age. In high school his music education continued with choir and Madrigal Membership. In 1997 he joined the Barbershop Harmony Society singing lead, tenor, or bass in competetive Chorus and Quartet events as well as theatrical shows and recitals.

His favorite vocal or instrumental music includes jazz, pop, R & B, R & R, Big Band, Latin, Operatic, Classical, bagpipes, Broadway, Reggae, Western, and very selective country. Hobbies include singing, dancing, fishing, photography, writing poetry, spectator sports, entertaining, and indoor and outdoor games. David found the Goldtones in an ad from a community newspaper in 2017.