OUR MEMBERS

OUR MEMBERS ARCHIVE

Sec. Bill Morehead

Bill Morehead was born many years ago; he said he doesn’t remember much about his first 3 or 4 years as he was pretty young. At some point in time Bill went to High School. He says that they couldn’t deal with him in grammar school so they just shipped him off to High School. (Back then they didn’t have ‘middle school and ‘high school’) While in school Bill read a number of Jules Vern novels and decided he wanted to build some kind of futuristic flying machine. After conferring with Werner Von Braun he decided that a liquid fuel rocket was the way to go. Bill tried a lot of different liquids, Water, spit, 7-up, Mr. Pibb, Dr.Pepper, Pepsi, and finally Coke, but nothing worked very well. Then one day, Bill found out about GASOLINE!!! During his summer break he and another kid designed a liquid fueled rocket. Little did they know that they would change history. After returning all their Mr. Pibb, 7-UP, Dr. Pepper, and Coke bottles they bought a few gallons of gas and fueled their Liquid Fuel Rocket. It all happened after school one day. The rocket fuel ignited and it blasted off the school basketball court. The rest is history. Bill and his buddy won a National Science Fair award, and assured the Mayor of Chicago that it was Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, not their rocket that caused the fire. (Yeah right Bill!)

Dr. Von Braun was so impressed with Bill’s rocket that he got him into Perdue (the university not the Chicken farm). Bill majored in Mechanical Engineering (sure glad it wasn’t Aerospace Engineering huh?)And received his degree in 1861, oops sorry that was 1961.While at Perdue Bill learned to play the Banjo and joined a group called “The Oxmen”. When they were not out in the woods puling logs or plowing fields, they played at a number of college and area shows, in fact they performed at the Perdue (university not the Chicken place) Music Hall before an audience of over 7000. Bill never said if the 7000 were people or chickens. I would guess that they were people but one never knows.

After his College years, Bill joined the Army (we’re not sure which army, as he didn’t say in his bio.). He received a commission as a 2nd LT. and was stationed in San Francisco for 2 years. (Notice they kept him away from rockets and stuff that burned!) Bill told them of his high school accomplishments and was sent to White Sands Missile Range as Range Test Officer. Now he was in his element, shooting off Rockets and blowing stuff up, he was in heaven… Well, that only lasted a while, and Bill got tired of not seeing what he was blowing up or setting fire to so he retired.

Going back a few, while Bill was in San Francisco he became very close friends with Bob Shane, one of the founding members of the “Kingston Trio”. He and Bob bonded almost immediately as Bill was a banjo player and played a lot of folk music. They remain friends to this day (even though Bob has no interest in rockets!). Bill has traveled with the Kingston Trio quite extensively as a friend, occasional producer, and roadie.
In 1979, Bill founded the Morehead Marketing Agency, a sales and marketing company for consumer products based in Cincinnati, Ohio and was President of the company for 9 yeas when he sold it to his partner and retired.

Presently Bill hold patents on 3 ultra thin wallets and after retirement opened “The Front Pocket Wallet Company tm to market his products on the internet and to wholesalers. Check out www.frontpocketwallet.com .

Bill has several Banjos that include a Gibson Mastertone which at one time was played by Mr. Bob Shane and was played on the hit song “Tom Dooley”. His favorite Tenor banjo is a 1933 Mastertone that he plays weekly with the Banjo Society. Bill and his wife Judy, now live year round in Venice Florida. He is a featured singer with the Banjo Society and is much appreciated for his contributions to the group. Thanks Bill.