Some people in our community have questioned how we could be so fortunate as to have someone from Owen capable of writing such a wonderful composition just for us? Well, it took many years and a lot of hard work!
Tim Gelhaus even in high school told his parents he wanted to work on music for movies someday, and they, like all parents, said "Mm-hm...yeah, right." While they watched a movie for the story, he would watch and listen to it for the music. Tim Gelhaus graduated from Owen-Withee High School in 2011, after taking several semesters of independent study in Music Composition from Jim Scheuer, and getting lots of encouragement from both Mr. Scheuer and Doc Hosler.
Tim went on to obtain an undergraduate degree in Music Composition from Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa, and then took a step further, getting a Master's Degree from Butler University in Indianapolis. While in Dubuque and Indianapolis, he was already composing his own music, and had a composition performed by the Dubuque Symphony. During this time, he also started working for a music publishing company, Alliance Music Publications, starting to learn the finer points of creating music scores.
Through contacts at Butler University, Tim was able to land a job with JoAnn Kane Music Service in Los Angeles, California, one of the largest companies in the United States that provide orchestration, score creation, and music preparation services for the film and television industries. Some of the music you may have heard that Tim personally has worked on during the last several years, include the soundtracks of Avatar 2, Toy Story 4, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the West Side Story remake, and Star Wars Episode 9, just to name a few, and also the Academy Awards presentation show, Family Guy, The Orville, and Only Murders in the Building on television. If you go to the movie theater, keep an eye out for his name in the credits at the end, or check out his IMDB site.
Over a year ago Scott Jalling and Phil Greschner contacted him about writing a song for the Owen Centennial, and a lot of work, a lot of thought, a lot of cooperation with the Centennial Committee, and many revisions went into the final original product. If the jazzy tune sounds a little familiar, it could be because, after Scott sent the Owen 75th anniversary book to him, Tim found the 1938 Owen Fight Song melody, and decided to put his own ragtime accompaniment to it on a short trumpet solo. Tim was so grateful to the Centennial Committee for arranging for him to be here in April for the tune's premiere.
So, many thanks to Tim for all his hard work on our behalf, and congratulations Owen once again for producing such a fine young man and talented composer!