PRESCOTT - For most of his life, Prescott resident John Hafer wanted to play and teach music for a living. Fate never allowed him that dream.
From singing while his mother played the piano at church when he was 4 to beginning to learn the trumpet at 7, to his current place in Prescott at 74, music has flowed through Hafer's blood.
It is the love that drives him to do all he does for Prescott.
Besides being a musician, Hafer is a Korean War veteran.
He graduated from Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania in 1952 and spent four years sailing the North Atlantic on an icebreaker.
While in the service, Hafer acquainted himself with many of the military big-band musicians back east.
After he moved to Prescott in 1992, he began booking professional military bands from Washington, D.C.
, in downtown Prescott.
I book them two to three years ahead to make sure they'll be there, Hafer said. The veterans in this town really love the bands from D.
C. because the concerts are all free, because they're vets.
Most of the time, Hafer will grab his trumpet and play with the bands, bringing back old memories.
Unfortunately, Hafer never made it into the professional realm as a musician.
After he left the military in 1956, he went to California to attend school and become a music teacher.
Rather than finishing college, he wound up working for Von's Grocery Store as a customer service representative.
He worked there for 30 years, pushing his music to a side job instead.
His love of music never waned, though, and it shows through his eyes as he talks.
No one pays Hafer to hunt down, book and bring the D.
C. bands to Prescott.
He does it purely from passion and drive.
In his den, photographs of big-band military groups Hafer has brought to town smother an entire wall.
I'd been in town, I guess, five or six years. I'm a retired musician, said Rob Carey, a friend of Hafer's, talking about when he first met his pal.
One of the fellas on the tennis court said, 'You ought to really meet John Hafer, because he knows everyone in the music business here in town.'
Carey said that after a brief meeting over coffee, Hafer invited him to his birthday party.
So I met him there and really had a chance to talk to him, he said.
He's very outgoing, knows a lot of people. He has a special affinity for musicians.
Carey believes much of that affinity stems from the dream Hafer never was able to carry out fully.
The two have been friends for about eight years. They've even performed together.
He knows everybody, said another friend of Hafer, Sharon Anderson.
I can't believe how many people this man knows, all the connections he has.
A pianist, Anderson shares Hafer's love of music. She especially enjoys watching the military bands play:
They're just topnotch.
A musician's term is that they're very tight.
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