Don Barrows has become a Snowbird. When he and his wife Lucille rented a house in Surprise, Arizona, last January and February, and he was able to play golf in shorts, the Barrows decided that they would do it every year. But they would definitely not be making the yearly trek to Arizona in an RV.

"We will be cruising down the highway in our Acura," laughed Barrows. "I just can't see myself in an RV."

In the letter that Barrows sent out recently to members of the Federal Way Chorale, alerting them that this would be his final year as director, he started out by explaining his reason for a second retirement.

"I appreciate the fact that our assistant director Andrew Miller took rehearsals for me in my absence [last and this year], however, I realize this is not a long range workable situation," said Barrows in his letter. "I have decided this coming Chorale season will be my last as director of this very fine choir."

Barrows founded and has been the music director of the Federal Way Chorale for thirteen years. He said what he would miss the most are the voices.

"It's pretty exciting to be in a room with ninety singing voices, especially when there is a fine chamber orchestra accompanying," said Barrows. "I will miss being able to enjoy that so often, and the camaraderie."

Barrows first started leading choirs after teaching at a Jesuit school in Alaska. There he met his wife, and the young couple returned to Washington State when he got his first job as music teacher at Colville High School. On the side, he studied at Eastern Washington University and received a master's of music education degree in 1965.

Growing up in the small country town of Brewster, Washington, Barrows had always sung in his church choir. As a Fulbright Scholar at Gonzaga University, where he received his BA, he sang with the Men's Glee Club and varsity choirs.

After Colville, Barrows took a job as a music teacher at Foster High School in Tukwila. In 1969, when Thomas Jefferson High opened, Barrows, his wife and their six children moved to Federal Way and he organized TJ's music department. He started an a cappella group of over one hundred voices, a girl's choir of ninety voices, a boy's choir of thirty, and a swing group of twenty.

"The music teacher is usually the last one out of the parking lot in the evenings, with rehearsals and such," Barrows said. "It was a busy time, and in the summers I would attend workshops and search for new and challenging musical literature."

From 1976 until 1995, Barrows taught at Lincoln, Kentridge and Decateur High Schools. During his thirty years of teaching, Don's choirs were often chosen to perform at both state and Northwest music conferences.

In addition to his teaching duties, Barrows was the music director of the Puget Sound Musical Theater for ten years, and director of a community women's choir named Harmony Unlimited. He also began serving as the choirmaster at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Federal Way, a position he still holds and plans to continue indefinitely.

In 1993, Barrows retired from teaching.

"I was eager for a change," said Barrows. "I decided to fulfill another dream and got together with my close friends Jim Burbidge, Carolyn Perrone, Al McEachern, and Joan Tabrum to organize a community choir."

The Federal Way Chorale was born. Featuring a full range of voices, from high school students to grandmothers, the choir is comprised of around ninety voices for the December concert and around sixty for the two spring concerts.

"We have try-outs twice a year, and typically have more people joining us for the holidays," explained Barrows. "Prospective members should have a bit of experience singing in a choir, there's only so much hair I can lose."

Anyone with a talent for singing may audition for the Federal Way Chorale. Try-outs are held before the first fall rehearsal, and again in January for the spring season. The group rehearses and performs at the United Methodist Church on the corner of 51st South and 297th.

"The Federal Way Chorale started around my kitchen table, and four of the original five still sing with the group, " said Joan Tabrum last week. "I first met Don while singing in Harmony Unlimited. He's a great director and we'll miss him."

When asked about his directing style, Tabrum said, "The best way to describe Don is that he has a certain sound that he hears in his brain, and we rehearse until we can match that."

The title of their spring concert, "From Back to Broadway," sums up the FW Chorale's musical offerings. Folk songs and American spirituals also get the spotlight, and the December concert features all types of carols.

"The Auburn Symphony will play with us at our Holiday concert, and I'm really looking forward to that," said Barrows.

When Barrows retired from teaching, he became very active in the Kiwanis Club of Greater Federal Way. As Secretary, he organizes a fund drive each year for needy families in cooperation with the Federal Way Fire Department. At the start of the school year, he sends out letters to Federal Way elementary school counselors, asking them to identify students whose families could use some holiday cheer. Come December, around one hundred families receive two or three toys per child and enough food for a week's worth of meals.

He also got his realtor's license so he could work with his wife, an associate realtor for Windermere Real Estate.

"We will still spend most of the year in the South Sound; we love our house, and the community, plus we have five grandchildren here," said Barrows. When asked if any of his children followed in his musical footsteps, Barrows replied, "Three of my kids work for Microsoft...although they sing in their church choirs, their jobs are a bit more lucrative than that of a choir director. But I wouldn't have done anything else."