n : an act of scaling  v : climb up and over; "They had to escalade canyons to reach their destination"

Here is a little history on Escalade. We have changed over the years and we thought it might be kind of fun to recount that history. Back in late 1999, our chapter chorus was preparing for their upcoming spring show. We were asked to take part by singing "Gary, Indiana" (from the Music Man fame). The members of that first quartet were Randy Rogers, Dan True, Tom Hawkins and Curt Korn. The one funny thing about that quartet was that 3 members were actually singing different voice parts than they sang in the chorus! We got through that spring show and had a lot of fun and learned as we went along. Our intentions were not really on continuing the quartet but since we had so much fun, we thought we would give it a try. But we would have to do it without Dan, since he couldn't commit to a quartet due to the miles he would have to put it to make it work. Along came new member,  Dan Hopper. We continued to sing as a quartet and decided to try and compete for the first time as a quartet. One thing was missing though, we still didn't have a name. We brainstormed a bit and came up with what we thought was a winner, harmony.com. We registered with the Barbershop Harmony Society and went on to compete. We found out shortly before we had to leave for our contest site, that the name we picked, had been already taken! We scrambled and went with our second choice (The Cadillac Gang) and made our intentions known right before we went on stage. The judges seemed more than a little confused and so were we! After the competition, we looked a little closer at the definition and knew we had to change one last time. Escalade was born! Escalade continued on as a formal quartet, performing for the Harmony Junction Chorus annual shows and several other events in and around the Albert Lea and Fairmont areas. But as time goes on, lives change. Dan lost his wife to a lengthy illness and decided to move back closer to his children living on the west coast. An emotional last performance at another annual Harmony Junction Spring Show in April, 2003, left Escalade wondering what the future held for us. That was the beginning of an 18 month long hiatus.  Enter Jeff Hagen, former Harmony Junction Chorus member. We finally convinced Jeff to sing with us. As a side note (and true to Escalade form), Jeff came in singing a different voice part than he had sung before. Things began to click quickly and Escalade decided once again to compete. After 3 years away from the competition scene, we had no idea what was in store for us. And on March 12, 2005, in Faribault, Escalade realized their first ever championship by capturing the SW Division Quartet Championship. True to the definition of our quartet name, we had scaled to the top for the very first time.

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