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His joie de vivre and eagerness to embrace challenge have quietly infected the Big Apple Chorus for over 22 years. Even in retirement, life, with all it has to offer, can't slow down March's "Spotlight" featured, man in BAC, Bob Kovach.

You might suppose a career educator with advanced doctoral degrees, coauthor of an internationally distributed educational textbook, an avid reader and a history enthusiast might retire to a sedentary life of inner reflection. However, in nearly everything he takes on, Bob, converts tenacious intellectual rigor into fuel for action and a vigorous pursuit of beauty.

Retired, ha! One glance at Bob Kovach's appointment calendar and you know you are dealing with a man who doesn't wait around patiently for something to happen. He retired three and a half years ago and hasn't lost any momentum in a life of cerebral challenges, physical activity and personal self-improvement.

Besides being a league bowler and softball player, Bob is a weekly, full-court basketball player, an occasional golfer, traveler and card shark. But his real passion for sport centers on sailing. He grew up along side of lake Erie the son of a merchant mariner. Many weekend outings took place aboard the family motorboat.

During the grind of his doctoral studies for his Ph.D. in educational psychology (City University of NY) and while looking for escapist reading, he discovered the vicarious pleasures of travel and sailing literature. That interest would eventually blossom, however, into actively yachting with the luxury of time and the shared enthusiasm and seawomenship of his wife, Nancy, who is recently semi-retired.

Bob and Nancy navigate, maintain and thoroughly enjoy their 1984, 35' C.& C. sail boat, fittingly named "Challenge". It's a perk of the Big Apple Chorus life too that they welcome their friends and fellow singers, if not to travel the globe, to at least to savor a leisurely cruise around Manhasset Bay and the Long Island sound.

Not that he's much less serious about his ball playing. Bob's an outfielder with the Long Island Seniors Softball Association and plays two double headers a week, 64 games a season and organized a sub league to play into October and November. But it's the sailing where he's particularly effusive. A story about his near victory in an essay writing and survival contest, sponsored by Sail Magazine, is amusingly and appropriately filled with rapture just shy of the fisherman's tale of the one that got away!

His fascination for the sea and his inclination as an educator (30 years with Port Washington High School-- teaching history and economics) in fact, merge in his volunteer and civic capacity (now in his third year) as the Commander of the Little Neck Bay Sail and Power Squadron. The Squadron is one of Long Island's 18 squadrons whose purpose it is to teach sailing skills and public boating safety.

And then, of course, there's Bob's musical life: Like his other interests, his love for singing had roots in his youth but his singing didn't flourish until years later. Bob sang, in his Kirk Junior High in East Cleveland, in a select choral group called The Ensemble. They sang and performed mostly show tunes and Fred Waring compositions for community and civic organizations. He also sang in his church choir. But otherwise it wasn't until he discovered Barbershop that singing came back into his life with a vengeance.

In 1983 at the behest of a neighbor in his Queens apartment, Bob attended a rehearsal of a vocal group that did mostly Fred Waring arrangements like the kind he did as a kid. That night, however, they also sang the quintessential, barbershop song, "Lida Rose", from Meredith Wilson's, The Music Man. The harmonies appealed to him so much that, in his inimitable gung-ho fashion, that very next weekend, he sought out and attended a rehearsal of the local Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society in Queens.

While visiting the Queens Chapter, he caught wind of a newly established Manhattan Chapter and its formidable 100-man Big Apple Chorus. On October of 1983 he went to visit the Big Apple and clearly recalls the experience: "As soon as they began to sing I just about fell off my chair. From the first sound they made --for warm ups --I was amazed. But a half hour later when the principal director ( Don Clause) showed up, the sound, somehow, got even better!" He was so struck that he requested an audition immediately during a break in the rehearsal. They obliged him and he's been a truly stalwart member since.

"As much as I like performing in contests and shows, that's icing on the cake. The real joy that I get are the weekly rehearsals. What better thing in the world could there be to do on a Monday night?" is the answer I got when I asked what drew him to nearly every rehearsal and show for the past 23 years.

Besides being an active man on the risers for the past 23 years, he's been a front row dancer, the chapter's Secretary (which he is currently), chapter President, a Show Chairman and the chapter's Administrative Vice President. Asked about taking on administrative overhead he says, " I love the chorus and its needed; I enjoy it because I get to know everybody."

It was, however, only after 20, long, overdue years in the society that Bob first also took the leap into quarteting. He did it with his usual gusto and tenacity. In 2001 Bob developed an interest in the North Carolina Harmony Brigade (an independent group of somewhat driven quartet singers who take on unusually demanding music). Persuaded by his unrelenting tenacity, he was given a provisional opportunity to prove himself to this otherwise experienced cadre of singers, though it promised to be out of his league.

After months of preparation with a group of prospective Brigade invitees and during a 12 song, four and a half hour, adjudicated, audition, he found himself in a quartet made up of the most promising of the auditioning prospects (and all BACmen). The quartet decided to officially registered as Greenwich Av and swiftly went on to make it to a respected position as midlevel District competitors. "I only wish I started quarteting 20 years ago."

""I never dreamed I'd have the solo quality voice to be up in front of the chorus singing for the audience in a quartet. I always thought of myself as just a good member of the bass section," His quarteting experience, he added, has taught him to overcome stage fright. "I was scared to death singing in front of the chorus that first time, and at the Novice contest -even though we came in third- and I was scared to death at the Division quartet contest - but I remember being NOT SCARED at the District contest. Bob is now also part of a team creating a Mid-Atlantic Harmony Brigade as well and will be it's inaugural contest administrator in August '06.

So what's the common thread? "There's a beauty to making a turn on a double play, there's a beauty to the arch of a homerun, and to a perfectly set sail." "And the chorus and quartet?" I asked. "There's a beauty to the ringing of a chord…There are times when we really are on the verge of greatness"

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Steve Adams	Dan George	Gabe Butler	Glynn Fluitt	Jim and Michael Steiner

Scott Brannon	Gary Ford	Brad Verebay	Vinny Haynes	Frank Hendricks	The Patricias

Bob Kovach	Joe Husstege	Gordon Harrison	Roger Payne	Dick White

John Gouveia	Pat Kelly