In Memory

Forrest M. Chapman



 
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09/25/14 09:01 AM #3    

Mark A. McHenry

Sam, yes, Chip was a great friend and died far too young. I've been working on getting Tom Marten to come over for the reunion festivities. He feels that he's an outsider because he didn't actually graduate with us, both I've assured him that he'd be most welcome. He's got bonafide Lowman Hill and Boswell roots - even if he wasn't in Moore Bowl on that stormy evening. And it'd be a treat if he'd bring his guitar and sing us some of his great songs.  I look forward to seeing you soon!  And speaking of your musicianship, don't forget when you pulled out a rocking Boogie Woogie for a talent show when we were in about 3rd Grade.


09/25/14 03:09 PM #4    

Mark W Neis

A Chip Chapman tribute from a fellow debater.  Chip was a "presence" in a debate round.  First his radio/tv voice quality.  Second, his razor sharp wit and logic skills.  Third, his physical presence fairly tall and very impressive demeanor.  Senior year (Fall '68) his colleague (two person teams in most tourneys) was Dan Shevrin.  I was lucky as an underclassman to see some of Topeka's (not just THS) better debaters.  Larry Rosen, TWHS and his colleague, Monty Clouse and Kristin Dutton who were THS seniors when I was a sophomore.  I place Chip and Dan as a team in the windup of the '68-69 THS debate season in that group of top notch Topeka High debaters populated by others in the '69 class like Dave Blakely, Becky Germonprez, Jim Young, and Mark McHenry.  

I don't intend to embarrass Dan Shevrin, but the setting was: Manhattan High School Invitational. It was after the THS tourney; our tourney was always held in mid-November.  Manhattan coach and debaters claimed it was 1st ever Power Match Tourney with cross examination of opponents. Without getting into math of it, at the end of 5 rounds out of a total of 6 preliminary rounds, it was said to us that there were two 5-0 teams, they meet each other, result is one is 6-0 the other 5-1.  Other matches are between 4-1 teams resulting in a group of about 7 5-1 teams and 7 4-2 teams.  [My colleague was Randy Bartley, we were one of the about 14 teams that were 4-1 after 5 rounds. We lost, thus were 4-2 in prelims and did not advance.] So 7 5-1 teams, plus the 6-0 team advanced to final rounds.  You may have figured out by now that if I was on a team at this tourney with Bartley, were were cumulatively picked for this tournament as part of a strong "back bench" of the squad. Problem for Coach Eley, he had maybe 16 senior debaters including Mr. McHenry who debated some with Jim Young, two distinctly "front benchers".  It was hard to hear every team, let alone figure out who was strong at end of the season.  Dan and Chip were strong in late season getting better each week. Chip's band duties kept him close to home early in the season, this was one of their team's chances to go "out of town" to an "overnight" tournament.   

As to the Manhattan power match tourney with Cross-X (this is by the way the standard format in high school debate now), I think you know who was the SOLE 6-0 team after six rounds-Chip Chapman and Dan Shevrin.  Chip and Dan then plowed through quarter final (won), semi-final (won) and reached final.  Oh, what do you think-they met the team that beat Barley and me in the 6th round, that team was one of the 5-1 teams in prelims.  Final round started after 5:00 or 6:00 pm on a Saturday afternoon, rest of the squad anxious to get home, but we hung in.  Though Bartley and I debated the team Chip and Dan were facing, we couldn't help tipping them their opponent's affirmative case.  Chip and Dan drew affirmative. There were at least 5 judges maybe 7 for the final round.  Affirmative side was not Chip and Dan's strongest side of the topic [hope Dan agrees].  I recall they narrowly lost on perhaps 3 of 5 or 5 of 7 ballots.  If you think about going 9 rounds of one hour debates over a Friday and Saturday, well past 5:00 pm on Saturday night, and then losing only the last round by a narrow decision by 5 of 7 Judges, I think my 4 Star rating of the Chip and Dan team is deserved. 

Chip's untimely death brought me a new experience-I personally knew someone who died.  He took a job out of college with SW Bell and was on a light plane flight to Greensburg, Kansas, [yes the city hit by the devastating tornado) in his job.  His wife he recently married told his friends Chip had bad feelings about the flight.  The pilot hit some high wires as the plane was landing.  I don't recall if there was an issue of bad airport lighting or not.  If there were any survivors, it was only the pilot and perhaps a front seat passenger.  Ask Jim McEntire who likely recalls the accident in more detail.  They were friends at Boswell.  

I tend to think about Chip especially around reunion times.  Probably you figured that out from this lengthy dissertation. Thanks if you made it through this tome, for my chance to give Chip another salute on that brilliant debate performance with Dan Shevrin in Fall, 1968.   

Mark Neis, THS Debate Squad, '67-69.      

 


09/25/14 03:25 PM #5    

Mark A. McHenry

Mark,

You'll be pleased to hear that Dan Shevrin's planning to join us for this reunion. So perhaps he can add some debate memories to complement yours. I certainly remember that both Chip and Dan had memorable Ad Eley impressions.  


10/03/14 09:48 PM #6    

Donald N. (Don) Booth

Chip and I became good friends during our junior high days at Boswell.  We were also fellow string bassists in the THS orchestra and even roomed together for a year at KU.  He was one of those guys who made life-long friends easily.  I remember him setting up a darkroom in our little apartment bathroom at KU where he printed picture after picture of his girlfriend, who he later married. 

I recall the shock I felt upon hearing the news that he had died in a plane crash, not long after he graduated from KU.


10/05/14 08:12 PM #7    

Samuel A Crow II

Wow....I can't believe so many of my classmates remember "The Vegatables"...  We actually spent some of my dad's money to hire a marketing firm to bring our garage band into the Topeka "star" group, but we were all amateurs regardless of the hype we bought. 

Remember the "Jerks"...they were marketed as our lead- in group....Leroy Cook was our joint manager.  I know that Chip would know our frustration in not being the lead group.  He later a joined a much better group that did some tours and did pretty well.  Sorry..can't remember the name of the group, but I was pretty proud of him.

Later...we fell silent as groups like "Kansas" took away the spotlight....because they were great and we were mediocre.

Anyway...me and Chip and Tom Marten and Bill Fast finally stopped practicing in our driveway, and the rest is history.

See you guys next week at the reunion.  Remember...  "We are to sum total of all our prior experiences....we can be nothing else.".   These are some of our best experiences. 

Sam Crow

 

 

 

 

 


10/06/14 05:45 PM #8    

Donald N. (Don) Booth

Who can forget The Vegetables?


10/07/14 08:33 AM #9    

Mark A. McHenry

Don, man, seeing the Vegetables card brought back a wave of memories. I think you'd best bring your memorabilia collection over to T-town for the re-union.  See you there!


10/08/14 03:40 PM #10    

Stephen A. Dyer

Forrest and His EB-0

Forrest was a good friend. 

I was classically trained on the piano, and I became interested in the bass guitar while in eighth grade.  Forrest was in one of my classes, and he offered to me—sometimes after class, sometimes during class—five-minute-long tutorials covering the fundamentals of playing bass.  We never sat down together over an instrument, but his words were enough to get me started.

I came over, on occasion, to listen to the Vegetables practice in Sammy Crow’s basement, and to watch Forrest do what he did.  Almost every event in life presents potential opportunities:  attending those practices led to meeting the Vegetables' keyboardist, Tom Marten, which in turn led somehow to Tom, Ken Harris and me discussing the formation of another band.  When we found in Dave Turney the drummer that we needed, the Nightwatchmen came into existence, and we played high-school dances, places like Renfro’s in Emporia, a couple of battles of the bands at the Topeka Municipal Auditorium (now TPAC),  etc.   I was the bass player, and my second bass guitar was the one that Forrest sold me for $150:  his Gibson EB-0 was a beautifully kept, short-scale bass guitar that he had owned and played for some time after purchasing it second-hand.

The Nightwatchmen remained extant until the end of my sophomore year at THS, when the Martens moved from Topeka; through that move we lost Tom, our lead singer, keyboardist and arranger.  Our band, which had been slowly transforming its repertoire from rock to soul, couldn’t find a suitable singer to act in Tom’s stead, so we eventually—yes—disbanded.

But I didn’t sell the EB-0.  I subbed, on occasion, for a while, mainly with soul bands.  And I played bass in the THS Stage Band during my senior year.   However, during my undergraduate years, the 18– to 21–semester-hour course loads, coupled with 50-hour workweeks and married life, made free time for music scarce:  the bass guitar got relegated to the hall closet.  It then hardly saw daylight for more than 20 years, until 1993, when I became a musician in an historically African-American congregation.  But within the next year, I found that, for serious Black gospel music, I needed another perfect fourth or so below the EB-0’s open low-E, so I moved to a five-string bass.  The EB-0 once again found the closet.

Unfortunately, in 2005, thieves found that same closet, and, along with some $16,000 worth of other musical instruments and electronics, they removed the EB-0.  For me, everything else was replaceable, but not the EB-0.  It had been Forrest's, and I had attached to it much too much sentiment.

Our premature loss of Forrest from this life has hung over me for all these years.  I remember my first news of the accident.  Ruth and I were living in Kentucky at the time, but I spent two summers in Manhattan, KS, finishing the work toward my Ph.D.  I remember being seated at my makeshift worktable in the basement of the house we were renting in Manhattan, listening to the radio in the background, and hearing an announcement, as part of the news, of the plane crash and of Forrest being one of the fatalities.  I was shocked and deeply saddened.  Suddenly, all I had left of Forrest were my memories and his EB-0.

Today, all I have are the memories—mine, and now those shared by others who knew, respected and loved him.  I miss Forrest, and I miss the EB-0.  I’ll see neither again.  But the memories will be enough.

Keep resting peacefully, Forrest.


09/11/19 12:38 PM #11    

Barry M. Hollie

FORREST GONE WAY TOO YOUNG,

GREAT VOICE , SMART, TALL, SLIM, GREAT ATTITUDE,

AFTER ATTENDING A DEBATE TURNAMENT MY SOPHMORE YEAR AT THS,  MR ELLIE ASKED IF I WOULD BE INTERESTED IN FORENSICS TOURNAMENTS IN THE SPRING. I JOINED AND EARNED ENOUGH POINTS IN MY JUNIOR AND SENIOR YEAR TO BE AWARED A DOUBLE RUBY PIN. WHY DO I SAY THIS?? THE REASON IS THAT FORREST CHAPMAN ENCOURAGED AND HELPED ME.

THANK U FORREST..  FOR ME YOU WERE TRURLY  A SUPPORTER OF "DOING WHAT WAS RIGHT BECAUSE IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO".

CONDOLENCES TO YOUR FAMILY, THANK YOU FORREST FOR HAVING BEEN A PART OF MY LIFE

SINCERELY 

BARRY M. HOLLIE.

 

TOM MARTEN,  TROMBONE PLAYER  COME TO THE REUNION.... YOU ARE A TRUE TROJAN


09/12/19 05:35 PM #12    

Diane K. Ticehurst (Burton)

I love reading the memories you have all posted about Forrest. Knowing him is something I have always treasured. In our lifetimes, we just don't get to meet enough people like Forrest. It's impossible because they don't exist. I loved how his mind worked and how he used his intelligence to make the world a better place and to enlighten others including me. For example, I knew I was against the Vietnam War. That was an easy call for me. But it was Forrest who explained why we were there and the details of our tactical failures. That was when I really understood how very different this war was. Ok, so talking about the war is a downer so let me switch gears. In spite of how serious he could be about some things, he was also very witty, funny and fun to be with. I wish I could better describe what a special person he was, but of course all of you know it anyway. I saw his mother a few times after learning of his death and was so pleased to learn how happy Forrest's life was at the time of his passing. He was married and so much in love. Of course, it also broke my heart. Forrest, I hope somehow you know how much we all love and admire you.      With my love, Diane Burton

 

 

 


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