Members of the group Trinity, 1984.
This article was originally published in the Gaston Gazette.
When I moved from Raleigh to Gastonia in 1981, my family joined Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, then led by a dynamic pastor named Peter Setzer. Among our early friends at the church were Don and Lynn Leonard, who had recently moved to our community from Salisbury. Don owned and managed a successful company that provided heating and air conditioning products and services. Lynn was active in the church and had a passion that survives to this day for working with mentally and physically challenged adults at Holy Angels in Belmont. Our children got along. We were great friends.
Don was not only a businessman, he was a gifted musician. He could play virtually any musical instrument, but he had a unique talent for the 12-string guitar. One night he invited me to come to his house to sing with another friend, Ron Ownbey. That night we decided to form a singing group called Trinity.
Ron was our featured singing talent, a professional with an excellent voice. We recruited Maynard Bridges, a solid baritone, better known at that time as the voice of the Ashbrook Greenwave football team. This gave us three people who could actually sing, plus me. To give us volume and another good voice, we asked John Waldrop, then an accountant at A&E, to join us. Don and Ron knew we would need a sound man, and we got a good one in David Williard, owner and manager of Essics Sport Shop. Bob Lewis, a versatile backup singer soon joined us. Later, my brother-in-law, Don Newton, who could play the guitar and help Ron with some of the lead vocals, joined the group. Finally we recruited big Ed Brewer to carry the low end of the musical scale.
We sang at church picnics, nursing homes, special church services, and anywhere else we could. John Waldrop drove us in a 1980s-era van. We traveled and performed and enjoyed each other’s company until we realized that our careers, our spouses, and our children deserved higher priority than we were giving them due to our commitment to Trinity.
Don died of prostate cancer in 2008. I still miss him. Big Ed was the next to go. I remember his funeral service at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Charlotte, and I can still hear his deep bass voice. Then, in one of the most shocking moments of my life, Ron Ownbey died suddenly last year of an embolism that shut off the blood supply to his abdomen. The heart and soul of Trinity are no longer with us.
Maynard Bridges is living in a retirement home in Gastonia. Bob Lewis lives in Hickory, where he manages an income tax practice. Don Newton is retired from Duke Power and lives in Columbus, Ohio. David Williard still owns and manages Essics Sport Shop in Gastonia. John Waldrop has retired from A&E but actively manages volunteers at CaroMont Health. I manage my business in Belmont and occasionally write columns like this one.
I recently listened to a studio recording that Trinity did somewhere along the way. Ron’s strong voice leads the group. I can hear Maynard, John, both Dons, Bob, Ed, and the remarkable guitars strumming. Occasionally I hear my voice, slightly off key, and I wince. Sometimes I got it right, and I smile as I see Don Leonard nodding at me as he strummed his 12-string. Trinity was a special chapter in my life. Sooner than I like to think the group will have a reunion. All of us will be able to sing together once again, and maybe even I will be on key.
