TLDR: Tom Netherton was a baritone singer on The Lawrence Welk Show from 1973 to 1982, discovered when Lawrence Welk’s friend interrupted his golf game in North Dakota to insist he listen to the young singer perform.
Before television, Netherton was a decorated Army officer who served in Panama and became a born-again Christian during his deployment.
He died on January 7, 2018, at age 70, from complications of influenza and pneumonia at a VA hospital in Nashville, where he was treated because of his military service record.
Lawrence Welk discovered Tom Netherton on a golf course. Not metaphorically.
A woman named Sheila Schafer walked up to Welk at the tee box of the fifth hole of the Apple Creek Country Club in Bismarck, North Dakota, and told him he needed to stop what he was doing and come listen to a young singer at the clubhouse.
Welk went. Netherton performed with a small combo at the luncheon, not fully aware the meeting was functioning as a professional audition. Welk offered him a guest spot on the show within days.
A few nights later, Netherton stepped onto a stage in front of 19,000 people in St. Paul. By the end of the night, Welk had offered him a permanent job.
That is how you go from a North Dakota golf course to national television in a week. But the story of how Netherton got to that golf course is the more interesting one.
He Was Born in Germany and Grew Up as a Military Kid
Thomas Harold Netherton Jr. was born in January 1947 in Germany, the son of Major Thomas H. Netherton Sr., a career U.S. Army officer stationed in the country during the postwar occupation. Growing up as a military family’s eldest child meant frequent relocations and the particular discipline that comes with that kind of upbringing.
When his father retired from active duty in 1961, the family settled in Bloomington, Minnesota, which became Netherton’s home base through high school and his early adult years. He had no particular ambition toward performing.
During his junior year of high school he auditioned for a school musical, by his own account almost as a joke. He won the lead role. Something clicked.
He Enlisted in the Army and Was Decorated Before He Was 25
Before any of the television fame, Netherton followed the family tradition and enlisted in the United States Army during the Vietnam War era. His basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas, went well enough that he was recognized as the Outstanding Trainee of the Cycle and received the Spirit of Honor Medal, an award given to only one man in a brigade for exceptional leadership.
That performance earned him a spot at Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He completed the twelve-week program and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. His deployment was to Panama, where he commanded the 1542 Infantry Unit and was promoted to First Lieutenant.
In Panama, he performed regularly for the troops. His singing was broadcast over the Voice of America, the Army’s radio network. It was his first experience performing for a mass audience, even if that audience was scattered across military bases rather than sitting in a television studio.
Panama Changed Him in Ways That Shaped Everything After
While stationed in Panama, Netherton attended a service at a local Baptist church and experienced what he described as a spiritual conversion. He became a born-again Christian, and that shift reoriented his sense of what his talent was for.
After receiving his honorable discharge, he faced a genuine crossroads. He considered missionary work abroad. He spent a year at the Bethany Fellowship Missionary Training Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, seriously weighing that path.
What he ultimately decided was that performing was its own form of ministry, a conclusion modeled in part on the example of Pat Boone, whose career navigating secular entertainment while maintaining an openly Christian identity Netherton admired.
The decision to pursue singing wasn’t about ambition. It was a vocational choice rooted in faith. That distinction shaped every career decision he made afterward, including what he agreed to record, where he agreed to perform, and what he refused.
The Medora Musical and the Golf Course Audition
In the summer of 1973, Netherton was performing with the Medora Musical in North Dakota, a western variety show produced by Harold and Sheila Schafer. The Schafers were significant figures in North Dakota’s cultural and economic life, and they were personal friends of Lawrence Welk, himself a North Dakota native.
When they learned Welk would be visiting the state, Sheila Schafer saw an opportunity. She found him on the golf course at the Apple Creek Country Club in Bismarck and interrupted his game at the fifth tee to tell him about Netherton. Welk came to the clubhouse luncheon. Netherton performed.
The guest appearance in St. Paul followed days later. Standing six feet five inches with blonde hair and a baritone voice that filled rooms without apparent effort, Netherton was exactly the kind of wholesome leading-man presence Welk’s audience responded to.
The permanent offer came that same night in St. Paul. His first televised appearance as a full cast member was the 1973 Christmas special.
What He Brought to the Show That Nobody Else Had
Netherton’s voice was described consistently as a lush baritone, smooth and emotionally sincere in a way that suited television’s intimate scale better than a more operatic approach would have.
He was versatile enough to move between Broadway standards, traditional pop, and contemporary Christian material without sounding out of place in any of them.
That last category was his most distinctive contribution. Welk had always included hymns on the show, but Netherton brought a more modern, Jesus Movement sensibility to the religious segments. His performance of “He Is Alive” became a staple of the Easter specials and his most requested number by the audience.
He also had a tradition of serenading a woman in the studio audience during his performances, a gesture that often included his own mother, Lillian, when she attended tapings. It was the kind of moment that made the Musical Family concept feel genuinely real rather than just a marketing phrase.
He Never Married and Kept His Private Life Private
Throughout his years on the show and afterward, Netherton remained single. He attributed this publicly to his focus on his faith and his career, describing performing as a form of ministry that consumed his attention in the way a vocation does.
In tributes written after his death, some people who knew him personally described him with warmth and noted aspects of his private life he had never discussed publicly. He remained discreet about personal matters throughout his life, consistent with both the culture of the Welk organization and his own temperament.
What his colleagues and fans remembered was his kindness, his professionalism, and what Ralna English later described as his ability to make the world feel like a better place.
His Career After the Show Was Busier Than Most People Realized
When The Lawrence Welk Show ended original production in 1982, Netherton kept working. He found a natural home in musical theater, taking on the heroic baritone roles his voice and physical presence were built for. He starred in national tours and regional productions of Oklahoma! as Curly McLain and Carousel as Billy Bigelow.
He also maintained a consistent presence on PBS, appearing in and hosting specials that kept the Welk legacy visible for new audiences. He was fluent in French and appeared on the popular French variety program La Chance Aux Chansons, one of the few American performers to do so.
He recorded 13 albums over his career spanning gospel, pop, and holiday music, working with labels including Word and Ranwood.
In his later years he lived in Goshen, Indiana, performing for senior centers and local holiday programs, before eventually relocating to Nashville, Tennessee.
Why He Was at a VA Hospital When He Died
Tom Netherton died on January 7, 2018, in Nashville, four days before his 71st birthday. He had contracted influenza that progressed into pneumonia. His death was swift and came as a shock to the Welk community and his fans.
He was being treated at the VA hospital in Nashville because he was entitled to VA care through his military service record. His time as a commissioned officer, his deployment to Panama, his decoration as Outstanding Trainee of the Cycle and recipient of the Spirit of Honor Medal, all of that qualified him for veteran services.
The VA hospital detail, which confused some fans who hadn’t known about his military background, was simply the system working as it was meant to for a decorated veteran.
The response from the Welk Musical Family was immediate and heartfelt. He was remembered as one of the show’s most beloved performers, a man who had brought genuine faith and genuine warmth to a program that sometimes struggled to distinguish between the two.
He had started out winning a high school musical role almost as a joke. He had commanded troops in Panama, recorded 13 albums, serenaded his mother on national television, and played Curly McLain on stages across the country.
Not bad for someone who auditioned on a whim.
