Remembering George H. Shorney, FHS: December 16, 1931-March 31, 2012 (2012)

George Herbert Shorney, born in Oak Park, Illinois, died in Naples, Florida, after a three-year battle with lung cancer, predeceased less than a year by his spouse of fiftysix years, Nancy Leith Shorney. One daughter, three sons, and seven grandchildren survive him.1 George, whom his family and close friends called Gee-oh, is remembered as kind, gentle, generous, good-humored, outgoing, optimistic; a good listener wrote prose-perfect letters and sent postcards from afar; a fair, considerate, and competitive, publisher; and for four decades a sustaining force in The Hymn Society. George attended Oak Park River Forest High School and Denison University in Granville, Ohio (BA 1951). Following two years of service in the U.S. Navy and brief employment in a Chicago retail store, in 1958 he entered the family-run business Publishing. was founded in 1892 by Henry Sheperd Date, later commented on how the company was named: had very limited funds but a great deal of hope, in fact, all I had was hope and that is how the company got its name.2 George served as Hope's president from 1970 to 1991 and as its chairman until his retirement in 2001. George and his brother William, along with a creative and productive editorial staff, changed the company's focus from essentially revival, Sunday school, and alternative worship hymnals, to become a strong competitor in mainstream church music publishing. Central to developing a new approach to supplying congregational song was Hope's acquisition of North American rights for works of leading hymns writers and composers of the British hymnic explosion, for which Erik Roudey was the initial conduit, followed by signing up the emerging crop of American writers and composers. For an example of this egalitarian approach, see the list of editorial board and editorial consultants of die influential Ecumenical Praise (Carol Stream, Illinois, 1977), which reads like a who's who of ecumenical church music and hymnody. At die same time kept its ties to the broad evangelical hymnic market, largely through the editorship of Don Hustad and supported by George's acquisition of the North American rights for the Jubilate Group. When George retired in 2001, was preeminent in licensing hymns produced in the previous decades and had begun to deal witli die challenges of praise and worship music, Power- Pointed hymns on screens, and the transition from print to digital publishing. George's first contact with The Hymn Society (HSUSC) was apparendy the 1976 Conference in Chicago; thereafter he attended nearly every conference. In his 1993 interview with David Music3 he stated the annual meetings renew and encourage me and give fresh meaning to the word 'hope' which has been such an important entity and concept in my life. In 1990 George was elected a Fellow of The Hymn Society. In 2002 Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Princeton, New Jersey, awarded him an honorary doctorate. His enormous contributions to The Society include the agreement whereby manages HSUSC copyrights. Hope's oversight of this important asset saved hymns such as Georgia Harkness's Hope of die world from going into die public domain, as well as providing die underwriting of significant programmatic expansion. While die amount of die royalty payment varies from year to year, depending on what new hymnals or supplements are being produced, HSUSC Executive Director, Deborah Carlton Loftis, has indicateci that for each of the last three years the amount has been over $20,000. George initiated the practice whereby publishers sponsor sectionals for new publications. He did this by publishing single-author hymn collections and supplements as a way to introduce new hymns from established and emerging writers and composers. Not new ideas, but ones that in three decades George brought to perfection. For example, Break Not the Circle (1975) introduced Fred Kaan to American audiences. …