Bongiorni dead: Commissioner takes own life

Flags are flying at half staff at the Sumner County Courthouse today in remembrance of Sumner County Commissioner Gene Bongiorni.

Bongiorni took his own life at his rural Peck home early Monday morning.

“He will be terribly missed and always remembered,” said Sumner County Commissioners Eldon Gracy and Jim Newell in a prepared statement released to the press Monday afternoon.

“Commissioner Gene Bongiorni was a sensitive and charismatic person who brought compassion and understanding to the chambers of the Board of County Commissioners and the entire courthouse. His love of his many friends and community was only surpassed by his love and devotion to his wonderful wife, Shirley, and their family,” the Commissioners said.

Bongiorni was married and had three adult children, a son and two daughters. He had lived in Sumner County for 34 years and served on the Board of County Commissioners for eight years, after being elected in 1998 and again in 2002.

His death falls less than a week after the 2006 election, where Bongiorni missed re-election to the post by only 45 votes. He brought a lot of experience to the county. He served for six and a half years with the United States Air Force, followed by a career as a journeyman carpenter.

He served as the business manager of the Carpenters Union 201 in Wichita for 10 years and was a trustee on the Building Trades Health and Welfare committee in Topeka. Bongiorni also spent six years touring the country as a professional musician. He played saxophone and sang, sometimes as a band leader and at other times for other bands. He was well known around Sumner County for playing at various events, including volunteering to play for senior centers and Wichita hospitals.

“The combination of Gene's career as a hard working blue collar worker and his many years as a professional musician gave him an appreciation for everyone whom he came in contact,” said the Commissioner's statement. “His leadership style relied on an emphasis on the positive and he brought to the commission and the courthouse on a daily basis a spirit of progress and accomplishment.”

Sumner County Sheriff Gerald Gilkey said he enjoyed working with Bongiorni and said he was a “good help” to his department while he served as a Commissioner. He also said Bongiorni was a “spark plug” who brightened everything around him. “I think the community will definitely miss him,” he said. As the community deals with the realization of his death, Gilkey said some questions will never be answered. “Everybody can speculate but the only person who knows why this happened is Gene,” he said.

County employees are expected to turn out in mass for the services for Bongiorni.

Webb-Shinkle Mortuary in Clearwater is handling his services, which have not yet been announced. On the date of his services, only limited staff will be available in county offices.
The flag in front of the courthouse is planned to remain at half staff through Friday, Nov. 17.

Sumner County Clerk Shane Shields said the remaining six weeks of Bongiorni's term may be filled by Garey Martin, who recently won the vote for the District One seat. That will be a decision for the party who supports him to make, based on standard legal provisions, said Shields.

Bongiorni remembered as musical giant: Funeral services set for Thursday

Gene Bongiorni began playing the saxophone when he was in the fourth grade after it was introduced to him by his father, who was also a musician. His love for music was a passion he carried throughout his life, which ended Monday, Nov. 13, 2006 by his own hand at his rural Peck home.

Funeral services for the Sumner County Commissioner will be held at 10 a.m., Thurs, at Clearwater United Methodist Church.

Carter Green, fellow musician and owner of Greenjeans Studio in Wellington, said Bongiorni was one of his “very dearest and best friends.” Green said it was always a treat to get Bongiorni to talk about his professional music career in the late 1950's and early 60's. “He was quite a heavy hitter in the music scene in the 60's,” said Green. Bongiorni played saxophone, sang and wrote music - Green says he owned the rights to the 1963 song “Hippie Hippie Shake,” which was later performed by the Beatles. It is also the first song produced on the 2004 jazz CD “Say What” which paired Green and Bongiorni in the Greenjeans studio.

He was also a professional frontman for his band, to which Sumner County Counselor Jack Potucek - who has known Bongiorni for 45 years - can testify. While Potucek was frontman for the band “Fantabulous Jags” who came out of Wellington, Bongiorni was working the southeastern Kansas circles with Rodney and the Blazers.

Rodney and The Blazers was the band Bongiorni most famously toured with, and is attributed with being the first racially integrated band in music history, Green said. Bongiorni told Green of times when their band would eat meals in alleyways because they couldn't all get into restaurants because of the color of their skin. “You can imagine what an important step that was - at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, having a racially integrated band playing music together around the country,” said Green.

In addition to touring with Rodney and the Blazers, Bongiorni played back-up for Roy Clark's band. Clark was then host of TV's Hee Haw, and Green said Bongiorni played on the television program a couple of times. The program is said to have received an audience of 30 million people weekly.

Rodney and the Blazers were together from 1960 to 1965 and played back up for Chuck Berry, Johnny Burnett and Jerry Lee Lewis and played with Wanda Jackson. Bongiorni even shared a stage with music legend Willie Nelson, Green said.

Potucek met Bongiorni in the Kansas music scene, and remembers a great summer in the early 1960s when they both played in Wichita. A couple years later, both had careers going in Kansas City, where five clubs played live bands six nights a week. After playing over 30 hours a week on the bandstands, the bands were tight and professional, Potucek said. Bongiorni was with the Soul Kings and Potucek with the Comancheros. Both men were charged with keeping their dance halls full and busy, lining up the music to get more and more people out on the dance floor and “lock them in,” Potucek said.

As each of their careers moved on from Kansas City, Potucek said they did get the chance to play together, but it was some thirty years after their days as professional musicians.

Four gigs, with former professional guitarist from California Glen Swink, in Wellington and one at Kaw Lake in Ponca City. They played on the top deck of a house boat and their music poured back into the marina. Potucek said the two of them put their heads together between songs and were always on the same note when it came to getting the people dancing. “I don't think I've ever had a more enjoyable night working the front line with anyone,” Potucek said.

It was also many years after those years touring the country that Bongiorni was honored for his musical accomplishments by the Kansas Music Hall of Fame. In 2005, Bongiorni, along with band members of Rodney and the Blazers, were inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame. The Kansas Music Hall of Fame recognized their near break in the national music scene with their first single, “Teenage Cinderella.” The hit topped the charts in several large markets around the country, particularly in Phoenix, Syracuse, Fargo, and Philadelphia, but did not have enough distribution behind it to go national.

At the induction ceremony in Lawrence, Rodney and the Blazers - with all of the original members from all over the country - played a capacity audience for 30 minutes with Gov. Kathleen Sebelius there dancing to all of their songs. “We should all be very proud of his musical accomplishments,” Green said. “He had a fantastic musical career.”

Green and Adam Ewing are two band members who regularly played with Bongiorni at county events. Both remember the first time they played with Bongiorni.

Ewing said it was at a Great Race after-party when he first met Bongiorni. He and Green were performing with a rock band he was playing with in 2001. Both described Bongiorni as a grey haired guy who approached the band and asked if he could sit in with the band. He happened to have his saxophone in his trunk.

Ewing said the band played the earliest rock ‘n' roll songs they knew, quickly running out of older hits. “Then we started playing the rest of our songs, hoping he would keep up. It didn't take long before we realized who was keeping up with whom,” said Ewing. “He was playing out solos and just going for it.” Green said Bongiorni never missed a beat. “He just blew us away,” Green said.

At the time of the event, both said they didn't know Bongiorni was a County Commissioner or anything about his musical career. After that event, Ewing said Bongiorni started calling the guys to play gigs with him, and they've been doing it ever since.

Bongiorni always fronted the band and ran the microphone. Ewing said he could always get people laughing. “He'd ask people to write down their requests on hundred dollar bills,” he said with a smile. “It was the same whether he was playing for five people or 500, they all got the same show,” said Ewing.

Of all the events they played, Ewing fondly remembers Bongiorni a couple years ago when they played his own 50th wedding celebration at the Regent. Ewing said Bongiorni's family shares his musical passion and interest and several members of the family took the stage at various times to lend their talents. “He was real proud of his family,” Ewing said. And despite the immeasurable number of hours they spent together talking about music, Ewing said it was hard to get Bongiorni to talk a lot about the music scene in the early 60's because he was always focused on the music they were playing now and the gigs they had lined up in the future. Green said their next project was to be a second CD, which would feature the sweeter tunes most commonly heard at the events Bongiorni did most often. “Just two or three weeks ago he laid down the final sax and vocal tracks for this record,” Green said. “I'm absolutely going to finish with it. It will be a really good thing for everybody to have a recording on Gene's music,” Green said.

http://www.wgtndailynews.com/articles/2006/11/15/news/news4.txt

Wellington, Kansas, Daily News

November 15, 2006

November 17, 2006

CLEARWATER - Children laughed and played in a school yard across the street from the Clearwater United Methodist Church as mourners filed in to pay their last respects to Sumner County Commissioner Gene Bongiorni Thursday morning.

Bongiorni died Monday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was buried Thursday in the Council Hill Cemetery near Peck. More than 400 people - family, friends and colleagues - filled the church sanctuary. The Rev. William L. Ripley officiated the 35-minute service at the church. All music used during the service was played and recorded by Bongiorni at some point in his life. A recording of Bongiorni singing ‘He Touched Me' brought tears to several in attendance. Ripley read a tribute to Bongiorni from his grandchildren. “Words cannot express how much we miss you or how much we love you,” he read.

“He was always the first person to stand up and come around from the desk of county commissioners to greet you,” said Wellington City Engineer Larry Mangan. “Always with a handshake, always with a smile. It was nice to have that.”

Local bandmate Greg Ewing calls Bongiorni “A mentor, a band mate and a very dear friend. "Spending time with Gene on stage was a truly great experience. In the many years we played I don't think he ever missed a note, and hanging out with him off stage was just as rewarding, he would tell us about his experiences playing with Rodney and the Blazers, Roger Miller, and many others, and how he came to own the right to the song "The Hippie Hippie Shake". He was a living lesson in early rock 'n' roll history,” said Ewing. “I feel quite fortunate to have shared time, music, and Kentucky Fried Chicken with him.”

Rodney Lay, Sr., who toured with Bongiorni with Rodney and the Blazers, said Bongiorni played saxophone on several of their records and was very important to the band. “He was the best saxophone player I ever played with,” said Lay. “He could really, really play well, even up to his death.” Lay toured city to city with Bongiorni, working California all they way up to New York City where they performed in the famous Peppermint Lounge, and all along the East Coast.

Lay revealed Bongiorni had a second way of bringing in money - arm wrestling. “We discovered after our gigs we could make extra money betting on Gene arm wrestling the local guys,” said Lay. “We won a ton of money over the years.” The betting ended when a Washington D.C. bouncer at a club beat Bongiorni. After the loss, Lay says he recalls Bongiorni stood up and said to him, “you are a mighty man.” And with those words, they quit betting on the arm wrestling.

Lay and Bongiorni were reunited at the Kansas Music Hall of Fame induction, which Lay said was a special moment, to have their band playing together again, “like it was yesterday.” “A lot of people loved him, I think more than he knew,” Lay said. “I lost a dear friend and there's no way to replace him.” Lay was unable to attend funeral services for Bongiorni because he is undergoing cancer treatments.

“It's kind of ironic. Gene found out he had an illness and was told it was terminal, which is what I've been going through with stage four lung cancer, but they got it all,” said Lay. “I wish he could have come down here and gotten a different diagnosis.”

Gene Bongiorni Jr., 75, of Peck, Sumner County Commissioner, died Monday, Nov. 13, 2006. Visitation will be held from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 15, with family present from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the funeral home. Services will be held at 10 a.m., Thursday, Nov. 16 at Clearwater United Methodist Church.

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