KINGSTON, Pa. (AP) - Bobby Baird can really toot his own horn.


The award-winning veteran trumpeter has played venues in 48 states and Canada, participated in national radio broadcasts and taken the stage with numerous notables. He has performed for illustrious politicos, from Gov. Milton Shapp to President Ronald Reagan.


Baird played with Doc Severinsen - who would later be the leader of the NBC Orchestra on "The Tonight Show" - and pianist-conductor-composer Skitch Henderson. Baird backed up famous singers, including Rosemary Clooney, Peggy Lee and Eydie Gormé. He did a live coast-to-coast broadcast with legendary drummer Gene Krupa and local bandleader (and friend) Lee Vincent at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City.


Locally, he played with various groups including the Irem Temple Brass Band and the Stegmaier Gold Medal Band - the precursor to the Wyoming Valley Band - and has led bands of his own. In the 1980s, the Bobby Baird Dixieland Jazz Band held concerts at Wilkes University that raised $25,000 for the Rotary Club's charitable works.


Although he's not taking off on cross-country tours these days, Baird hasn't slowed down musically. He was recently honored with a tribute by the Back Mountain Chamber of Commerce, where he sat in with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks and played "dueling trumpets" with New York jazzman Jon-Erik Kellso.


"I'm 84 now and still going like the Energizer Bunny," Baird said.


Baird was born and raised in Kingston, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robertson Baird Sr. He said his father was a farmer with no musical background; his mother played a little piano.


"They gave me a cornet," Baird explained as how he got started in music. He learned to play the cornet, trumpet and flugelhorn, all similar instruments but with different tones.


He played his first solo when he was 5 years old, for his grandfather; he still remembers standing on a table in a smoke-filled room.


Baird got a special dispensation to join the musicians' union when he was 14 - usually members had to be at least 16 - and still belongs. In fact, Baird is the oldest and longest-term member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 140, according to its secretary Eddie Zebrowski.


"To the best of my knowledge, there's nobody else - and we've been around since 1902 - who has hit the 70-year mark," Zebrowski said.


Baird attended Kingston High School, where he won three Pennsylvania Forensic and Music League state championships: twice with trumpet trios and once as a cornet soloist.


Trumpeter Harry James, the bandleader and actor, was Baird's idol. Baird was also an Al Jolson fan, portraying him in the school's Stardust Revue.


When he graduated in 1947, Baird went to Syracuse University on a full music scholarship and was the cornet soloist for its symphony orchestra, but he only attended for one year.


Instead, Baird auditioned for the Army, Navy and Marine Corps bands, and was accepted by all three.


As for his decision, he told the Sunday Independent for an Aug. 22, 1948 article, "I have always liked the Navy and its famous band."


In turn, the Independent said of Baird in a Sept. 19, 1948 editorial, "He is generally conceded to be one of the finest trumpet players in the East."


Baird served for four years as a musician first class petty officer - and, at the age of 18, was the youngest trumpet soloist ever for the U.S. Navy Band, often featured on the national radio program, "Navy Hour." He studied with Lloyd Geisler, the first trumpet for the National Philharmonic in Washington, D.C., and also with the first trumpet in the U.S. Navy Band, Oscar B. Short, who was one of the last soloists with John Philip Sousa.


Baird played concerts at the U.S. Capitol and at the White House - including for the inauguration of President Harry S. Truman.


During his time in the Navy, Baird visited every major city in Canada, and "I played in every one of the 48 lower states. Alaska and Hawaii weren't even states when I was touring," he recalled.


In 1952, Baird came home to help his father manage the family business, Baird's Kingston Dairy on Sharpe Street.


"Is he going to put his trumpet and cornet aside? 'Never,' is his answer," a Sept. 7, 1952 article in the Sunday Independent states.


Brooklyn native Julius La Rosa, a popular singer in the 1950s, is a good friend of Baird's from their Navy days, when they were roommates, and La Rosa has made trips to the Wyoming Valley over the years to visit his old pal.


When Arthur Godfrey, then the most powerful force in broadcasting, caused an uproar by firing La Rosa from his show on Oct. 19, 1953, Baird came to La Rosa's defense in the local papers.


"The best way to describe Julius is to say he was a 'regular guy' and was always down to earth. He just wasn't the type to get a swelled head or do anything wrong," Baird is quoted in the Sunday Independent.


In 1954, Baird married Patricia Roberts, a registered nurse who would be a founder of and teacher at the Trucksville Nursery School.


La Rosa was supposed to sing at their wedding. However, La Rosa got an invitation to play in a golf tournament with Perry Como - where he met his own future wife, Como's secretary Rosemary "Rory" Meyer, Baird said. The Bairds were the newlywed La Rosas' first dinner guests in New York, and Baird still has the invitation to their wedding.


Baird remembers La Rosa visiting his house in September 2002 when he was in town to perform at Wilkes-Barre's Italian Festival. He said he and Pat arrived at La Rosa's concert on Public Square a little late, and when La Rosa spotted them, he stopped singing, stopped the four-piece band and made the Bairds come up onstage and sit with him for the rest of the concert.


When his father sold the dairy in 1960, Baird went into the radio business. He was assistant sales manager for WILK and, from 1968 to 1988 he was sales manager and part owner of WNAK in Nanticoke.


"The radio was very competitive in those days, and we were little old 'NAK from Nanticoke," Baird recalled.


It was tough at first, because the station played what Baird called "the good stuff" while other stations switched to rock and roll. WNAK started out as the number 22 station out of the region's 22 radio stations. But later it would become number one, per Arbitron ratings, Baird said.


The Bairds celebrated their 60th anniversary in September. They have four children: Bonnie, Lori, Robert III and Wendy, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. In fact, when his grandson, U.S. Navy Ensign Matthew Solomon, was commissioned, Baird received his first salute.


Baird still gets together with his old Navy buddies. He frequently goes up to Canada, where he has a summer place, to indulge his love of fishing, and he enjoys visiting his family.


And Baird is still working. He performs with Doug Smith's Dixieland All-Stars in Scranton, was invited to sit in with the nationally known Christian band The King's Brass, and got a call to play for Dallas students on Veterans Day.


Those who know him aren't surprised he's still going strong.


"This guy could blow the doors off most trumpet players I know," Zebrowski said.


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Information from: The Citizens' Voice,


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