On April 27th, we received the following message from NAMM‘s Dan Del Fiorentino: Guy Ward passed away on Friday [April 21]. He was 93 years old.
Guy was the president of the Ward Piano Company, located in Canton, North Carolina, from the 1940s until his retirement. After his daughter and son took over the company, he continued to go into the shop every day even at the time of his 2013 NAMM Oral History interview when he was 89! As Guy said, “the piano business is in my blood and I really don’t want to do anything else.” While the company has a retail component, the main focus has been piano repairs and service, the same tasks that inspired him to come into the business after his service during World War II.
To view a clip from Gary Ward’s 2013 NAMM Oral History interview, click here.
