GRC 2001 Talent Show

Master of Ceremonies: Dennis Keller

Part -1

Dick DeVeaux & his Doo-Wop Group – Singing
Brad Jones – Violin
Marc Champagne – Dilbert Cartoon
Don Burdick & Ron Wehren – Singing & Piano
John Nelder – Singing & Piano
Ted Allen & Kurt Palmer – "Learning to Sing using DOE"
Tunde Ogunnaike – Singing & Guitar
Frank Westad & Dutch Backup – "The Periodic Table" & "The Chemometric Lumberjack Song"
Dick DeVeaux & Bob Rodriguez – Singing & Piano

Part -2

Aaron Owens – Trumpet
Dennis Keller – Oboe & English Horn
Edith Flaster, Linda Denoyer & Ron Wehren – "Super Fractal Analysis Singalong"
Randy Tobias – Singing & Guitar
Paige Miller & Frank Westad – WGRC News
Jeremy Shaver – Singing & Guitar
Dave Bacon & Dave MacLean – "Quiz for Americans: Canadians"
Dennis Keller – Piano
Dennis Keller & Dennis Lin – "Limericks Singalong"

Dennis Keller wore several hats for the conference: besides moderating the final session, he mastered our ceremonies for the Thursday Night Talent Show. As you can see, he decided to do the latter in his gnome outfit. Besides keeping things moving along, he served as the accompanist for the ever-popular limericks, and gave us a beautiful selection of reed pieces.

Dick Deveaux and his Williams colleagues started things off with a rowsing spiritual, "You'd Better Pray (to the God of Partial Credit)". Of course, Dick reprised his role as Escamillo from "Carmen", and tried once again to teach us the "Toreador" song, with Bob Rodriguez as his able accompanist.

After singing the Periodic Table (the lyrics of which were posted largely on one side of the lecture room), Frank Westad, with help from various other Scandinavians, assured us that even though he's a chemometrician, he's still "O.K."

John Nelder

It was the Americans (Bill Sanders and Gerry Hahn) versus the Canadians (Peter Jones and John MacGregor). With Dave MacLean and Dave Bacon as the moderator and judge, who do you think won?

A guitar always brings out the talent in folks, and the one brought along by our chair, Randy Tobias, got a lot of use. Tunde Ogunnaike and he used it for a round of Simon & Garfunkle; Randy strummed a James Taylor tune; and Jeremy Shaver sang the saga of a pig.

A GRC standard: "The GRC News", presented by Frank Westad and Paige Miller.

Our talents come in all shapes and sizes: Brad Jones brought his Stradivarius and serenaded us with marvelous Mozart melodies and Aaron Owens blew some sweet Miles Davis tunes on his tiny little horn ...

... while Marc Champagne chose and overhead-ed cartoons for us all to enjoy, and Ted Allen and Kurt Palmer did a designed experiment for us!

Don Burdick, accompanied by Ron Wehren, taught us all a wonderful song he composed about being a grandparent. He even got his wife Mamie in on the act.

Of course, the audience enjoys it all (especially when you ply them with enough beer!)