Harmony College Northwest was created with a dream to provide a fun weekend of education and training in singing skills and the barbershop style. The early organizers wanted to share the knowledge, approaches and talent of barbershop “superstars”. And, we wanted to provide coaching for quartets and choruses with coaches they might normally not have access to.

​Tom Condon, past HCNW Dean says, “My sources tell me that 1980 was the first year for HCNW (then called a HEP: Harmony Enhancement [or Education] Program). Chester Colpitts, then Music VP for the Evergreen District, asked Jim Bloxzyl to set it up, because Chester lived in Canada and they wanted the school in the Puget Sound metropolitan area. Jim did just that. They were hoping for 150 students the first year; they got 210!”