A 1972 newspaper advertisement had a pivotal role in the success of the Gore Country Music Club.
The club celebrated its 50th anniversary at the weekend.
Club life member Max McCauley (86) said his wife, Coral, read an advertisement inviting people to attend a Southland Country Music Club meeting in Invercargill. She told him about the event and encouraged him to go.
Mr McCauley was a keen singer and sometimes appeared on stage with visiting entertainers, including Maria Dallas. His first public appearance was in Lumsden when he was 5 years old.
"The song I sang was The Yellow Rose of Texas and I yodelled with it."
Both his father and mother were good singers.
"Music was in the house and that is what drove me more than anything. I just loved it."
Mr McCauley did not want to make the trip from Gore to Invercargill alone, so asked his friend Bob Morrison to join him.
The following month they were joined by their friends Stewart and Bill Abernethy and Evan Beale, and on the way home they discussed the possibility of Gore starting a club.
Soon after the Gore Country and Western Club was formed at a meeting at Gore’s La Cresta cake shop.
Mr Beale was elected first president of the club and Bill Abernethy the vice-president.
The meeting closed with a sing-along led by Mr McCauley.
"Every singer needs an audience.
"We may not entertain or sing or play but somebody’s got to organise something in the background and organise events and that is where we slipped in."
The club met monthly from then on and in 1973 held its first public concert.
Members decided to hold a talent quest and this event — which was the beginning of the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards — was held in 1974 with 38 entries.
In 1985 the club was renamed the Gore Country Music Club to acknowledge the club was more than just country and western.
The club celebrated the 50th with events including a walk-up concert, a dinner, and performances by Eddie Low, the Warratahs and Australian blue grass band the Hillbilly Goats.
Former Gore mayor Tracy Hicks was asked to be the club’s first patron, and life memberships were awarded to Julie Mitchell, Laurel Turnbull and Sue Stenning.
Club president, Mrs Mitchell, said while the club organised the New Zealand Gold Guitar Awards there was much more to it.
It hosted monthly club meetings, where club members performed, gained confidence and entertained at rest-homes and for fundraising shows, she said.
The vision of a handful of five men in 1972, form the club proved to "indeed be a very good idea".
"Who would have imagined where it would lead to today," Mrs Mitchell said.
