Remembering Virgil Barstad
Virgil Barstad was a co-founder of Best Friends, a musical prodigy, a gentle soul, and one of the first to set foot on what would become Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.
Virgil was born in Oakland, California. The family moved to Castro Valley, California, when Virgil entered high school. He loved music from a young age and started playing the violin when he was 6. By the time he finished high school, he was playing musical instruments professionally in bands and nightclubs. In June 1960, he was the tuba player in a Dixieland band that appeared on the Dick Clark Show.
After high school, he took college classes and then was drafted into the Army, spending a year in Korea. When he left the Army, he continued taking classes at San Francisco State, and that’s where he met John Fripp, one of the initial Best Friends co-founders, who was giving a talk at the university. Intrigued by the ideas that John presented, Virgil decided to join the group of people who would eventually start Best Friends.
In February 1984, Virgil was one of the first co-founders to set foot on the property in Kanab, Utah, that was to become Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. He helped to construct the first buildings, operated a backhoe to smooth the earliest roads, and dug 4-foot-deep trenches, some of them several miles long, for water pipes. He also did lots of welding to build Dogtown’s infrastructure.
For many years, Virgil was a tour guide at the Sanctuary, showing visitors around. In the late 1990s, Virgil became the Best Friends accountant, and he designed some accounting software that was in use for many years. When Best Friends began doing formal budgeting, he earned himself the honorific “Spreadsheet Man” by designing a system of Excel spreadsheets to organize all the details. He continued working as one of the accountants until he retired.
He continued to enjoy music to the end of his days. While living at the Sanctuary, he was concertmaster of a local orchestra in Kanab, Utah, called the Symphony of the Canyons. He was a prominent member of the community choir called the Canyon Singers and led a vocal ensemble called Kanab’s Fabulous Crooners.
In 2001, he met the love of his life, opera singer Mary McDonald. They married in 2002, and Mary joined him in his musical endeavors. Eventually, she even had him singing opera.
Virgil was a gentle and humble person to talk to. And he was always interested to hear about your life. His presence still whispers — but rarely shouts — across Angel Canyon.
