Microphone man Paquette was ‘Neighborhood Hero’
Merrill Park yard served as youth gymnasium
Bob Paquette’s expertise in radio, sound and lighting earned him a local reputation for amplifying the joy of any celebration featuring music and word.
He earned a national reputation for his knowledge of microphones and mic accessories and founded what could be the world’s only microphone museum.
But it was the impact he made on his own world — Milwaukee’s Merrill Park — that earned him the title “Neighborhood Hero.”
“He certainly was a Merrill Park legend,” Milwaukee historian John Gurda said of the founder of Select Sound Service, whose front yard served as a community gymnasium where all youngsters were welcome.
Paquette died Thursday at age 88 at his home in the neighborhood where he was born, raised and never left.
“He’d always ask everybody who moved out when they were moving back,” said Herman Acevedo, 67.
Acevedo is among a generation of west side kids who bounced on the trampolines, hung from the rings, climbed the tree rope and swung from the pull-up bar in the backyard of the former West Division High School gymnastics star.
“People driving by would stop their cars just to watch us,” Acevedo remembered.
Paquette attended St. Rose of Lima parish and school, where he would later volunteer as a tumbling coach.
As a kid he earned money fixing his neighbors’ radios, and by high school was making so much he dropped out and went to work.
“It started in school when I was in fifth grade,” Paquette once said. “I was building little telegraph sets out of tin cans and nails and wire.”
Paquette served in the Army Air Corps from 1946 to 1948 and married his wife, Ruth, in 1950.
In 1958 he established Select Sound Service, which went on to provide sound and lighting at venues such as Summerfest and the Wisconsin State Fair.
“His affinity was for sound, how sound worked and how microphones amplified and spread sound to a larger group,” Paquette’s son-in-law Dennis Sanford said.
Paquette established the Bob Paquette Microphone Museum in 1970, amassing between 1,500 to 2,000 microphones, most made before 1950.
The museum, on the second floor of
Select Sound Service, 107 E. National Ave. in Walker’s Point, features microphones as small as ladybugs, as big as steering wheels, even a 14-pound mic carried by Admiral Richard E. Byrd while exploring the Antarctic.
Paquette wrote, “The History and Evolution of the Microphone,” and was considered a world-renowned expert on the device, lending microphones to movie makers for films such as “Raging Bull” and “City Heat.”
But that ended after he lent Woody Allen 18 microphones for his movie “Zelig.”
“He never gave them back,” Paquette said in a 2002 newspaper story.
Paquette took Anthony “Redd” Williams to the museum when Williams was 9 years old.
“He’d load all the kids into his van and take them there on Saturdays,” Williams remembered.
Acevedo, from Paquette’s neighborhood, became so skilled at gymnastics Paquette took him to practice at the old Eagles Club gymnasium.
There Paquette helped him hone the gymnastics and diving skills that would one day help Acevedo coach high school students.
“He was an amazing man, and has meant so much to my life,” Acevedo said.
Years later Williams would bring his own children to the museum, and stop at Paquette’s home whenever visiting from New Mexico.
“He had the means to move to the suburbs a long time ago, but that neighborhood meant so much to him,” Williams said.
“His roots were there, and he wasn’t going to leave until he got called to Heaven.”
Paquette, who was preceded in death by is son James (JoAnn), is survived by his wife, Ruth; sons Robert Jr. (Tammy), Michael (Cathy), Joseph (Anastasia), and daughters Ruth (Gary) and Judith (Dennis).