Friday afternoon will see the start of a weekend of activities at the Visitor Center, the Klipsch Museum of Audio History, the Klipsch plant just north of Hope and at Rose Hill Cemetery. There at 1:00 p.m. the man himself will be honored with wreath-laying at his grave. Denise Cooper, Secretary of the Board of Trustees for the museum, said the Hope High School band’s color guard will be present for the ceremony.
“I believe the sheriff's department is going to come out and play taps for us,” Cooper added.
There is a full schedule of events Friday and Saturday which include speaker-listening sessions, an outdoor barbecue dinner Friday, a concert from Hazy Jayne, a Lions Club Fish Fry Saturday, a presentation by Heritage Brand Ambassador Mike Dyer on Klipsch’s design ideas, a tour Saturday of all the relevant sites by Jim Hunter and even a Corvette Club car show. For the official schedule see the event’s website or the news release.
Cooper said at the coffee the Klipsch Museum draws visitors from all over the United States and beyond. “People all over the world know about Hope, Arkansas because of Klipsch speakers. We people in Europe. We have people in Scandinavia, Japan and Asia who know Klipsch speakers. With this Klipsch Museum, we're hoping to continue to spread the word of Mr. Klipsch and continue his science of sound.”
Cooper and her husband always drive down from Memphis to preside over the birthday bashes. Tim said of his own journey toward the Klipsch sound and founding the Klipsch Museum Foundation, “All this electronic equipment you see around here is stuff that I grew up with. I like to fix it. I still use a soldering iron. I use vacuum tubes at home and all that. So this just seemed like a good step. Every speaker I have is a Klipsch speaker, and I had a few of them.”
Tim is a founding member of the Klipsch Museum Board and served two terms on its board of directors. Now he’s taking a term off but intends to go back on. But these days he said, “I do the same thing I always do. I service the [Klipsch] Auditorium [in Hope City Hall]. I put the PA system in there. I'm working on that right now. Then most of the stuff you see around here, I'm responsible for hooking it up and maintaining it, cleaning it. When the belt goes bad on the turntable, I put a new belt on it. It's like I'm a kid in a big toy shop.”
Klipsch Museum Managing Director Ginny Sanders, when asked what she looked forward to about the yearly event said, “Seeing people come in to visit us for this bash, and I enjoy showing off all the work that we've done and where we're going.” Of the food, which included a variety of breakfast items, a fruit plate with dip, mini-quiches, sausage balls and a delicious cake whose top was iced in an image of Paul Klipsch looking quite dignified, Sanders said, “It's homemade. A lot of us, we just make everything ourselves and put it out.”
Chamber Executive Director Christy Burns said at the coffee, “We are always glad to come out to the Klipsch Museum and bring people out so they can see what Klipsch has going on. It's just amazing to me that not only has the museum been here for 10 years, but Klipsch speakers have been a part of Hope Arkansas for the last 80 years. So we're real thankful that Klipsch is here and supports the chamber, and then that they're able to celebrate his birthday every year with all their events.”
The next event is the Friday wreath-laying at 1:00 p.m. in Rose Hill Cemetery.
