Floyd Denver Pitts

Floyd D. Pitts

87, of Fayetteville died Tuesday, February 24, 2004 at his home. He was born March 10, 1916 at Stilwell, Oklahoma, to Nora Eleanor West and Charles William Pitts.

During high school, Floyd taught shaped-note singing schools across the Washington County area, tuned pianos, and played fiddle with a string band whose performances included KUOA radio in Fayetteville. He was valedictorian of his Morrow High School class in 1935. He supported himself at Northeastern State College in Tahlequah playing swing bands and other musical work, graduating in 1939.

He taught music and Spanish at Rogers High School before and after a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy during World War II, when he served as a disbursing officer at San Diego and on the USS Neville to Shanghai. He married Carmyn Gem Morrow of Rogers on July 6, 1945. In 1946, he obtained his masters degree in music at the University of Iowa before returning to Rogers as band director. In 1949, he took the band director position at Northside High School in Ft. Smith, where he initiated the Bi-State Music Festival. On invitation, his band marched in the Eisenhower inaugural parade.

In 1957, he began teaching in Miami, Oklahoma, where his band took top honors in marching and concert contests. During that time he also qualified as a registered piano technician with the Piano Technicians Guild. The family returned to Arkansas in 1967, when he established Pitts Piano Service and taught band at Lincoln, Arkansas and Westville, Oklahoma. He retired from teaching in 1979, at which time he was selected for the Arkansas Band and Orchestra Association ?Outstanding Bandsman? award. He continued work in piano repair, including restoration of player pianos and reed organs, until the early 1990's.

He was baptized into Christ in 1957 and sang in gospel quarters regularly on Sunday morning broadcasts on KWHN radio in Ft. Smith. He was ordained as an elder in the South Hill Church of Christ in 1976.