In the middle of talking, a strange beeping sound interrupts this man’s conversation. He pauses to determine where the sound is coming from and then in a minute he has pulled the contraption out of his pants pocket. But it’s not a mobile phone, as expected.

It’s a pitch pipe — a small device that musicians often use as a reference for what key they should sing.

“That way I am never without a pitch,” Bob Heritage says, holding the little device that serves also as a key ring. “If I am singing and I don’t pick the right pitch, it could be embarrassing.”

“See, that’s what I mean,” his wife, Carla, says, her point made moments earlier proven. “This man oozes music. It’s in his little toe.”

That’s why seven years ago, she knew exactly who she would pitch a music idea to. Today, with her huge, bright brown eyes, she glances over at him.

Both remember that day.

Carla knew what obstacles her husband, the realist, would put up. Worries about money. Questions about the large orchestra that would be needed. The publicity that would need to be bought to get people involved.

So she waited.

One day while the two were out for a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, Carla pulled over onto the side of the road and popped in a tape of a song, “Sing for the Cure.” One of Carla’s best friends and a cancer survivor, Jean Stutler, suggested that the song could be performed for a benefit.

“I am always a Pollyanna and a dreamer,” Carla said. “I heard this music, and I thought ‘Wow.’ I saw it as something much bigger — that this could give Kathryn the seed money she needs to start the Cancer Association.”

What she did not know then is that this one event would capture her husband’s heart, it would turn into something that has become the cancer association’s largest fundraiser each year and it would be one of the things that Bob feels he was put on Earth to do.

This is a man who was born in Mississippi to a musical mother. She taught music at school and used those same talents in church on Sunday morning. His stepfather was also had the same gift.

“I was surrounded by music all my childhood,” Bob said.

So he studied it in college. Found jobs where he could earn money working with it. And has turned it into his life’s passion. He has worked as Anderson University’s choral director for 13 years, spent time in a similar position at Mars Hill College and a university in Greenville. Now he is the choir director at St. John’s United Methodist Church in downtown Anderson and leads the Foothills Harmony — as well as teaching voice lessons on the side.

But once a week, usually starting in May, he’s working with 100-plus people in a church or at a university campus on something that he doesn’t earn a dime for. And those are just the practices.

Already, now, with this year’s performance still a week away, Bob is thinking about next year’s program. All of this from a man who was skeptical at first — until that initial practice.

“At our first rehearsal, that first year, we had 63 people show up,” Bob said. “I was pretty well blown away.”

At the end of this week, when the choir takes the stage in front of Bob, there will be 130 adult singers looking back at him, plus 27 children singing and a 36-piece orchestra.

Ask Bob why he does it and he looks back at that woman with those big brown eyes.

For nearly 12 years, she’s been standing by his side, and him by hers.

In 2000, something hit their marriage, though, that changed it forever.

He was working at Mars Hill College, located in North Carolina, and she was working in Anderson as a nursing home administrator. He was commuting back and forth on weekends to their home in Anderson. Then Carla was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Suddenly, he was back at home, and when Carla was too scared to know too much about the disease working its way through her body, Bob was reading everything he could get his hands on.

Step by step, they made it through. All the while, they had insurance. The costs of the medical procedures she needed were met, something that through knowing Kathryn Smith and Jean Stutler, they knew others were not so fortunate.

“Sometimes people just need gas money to help them get to their chemo treatment,” Bob said.

So that first year, the Concert of Hope brought in $75,000. That became the money that started the Cancer Association of Anderson. This year, the concert is already just $5,000 away from making $100,000.

And Bob couldn’t be happier that he won’t receive a penny of that money. But some things can’t be bought.

“Somebody once said, ‘Bliss is defined as the where the world’s great need meets your great passion.’ And that’s the way I feel about the Concert of Hope. I don’t think I could be happier directing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” Bob said. “As I look at my life, I truly believe this concert is one of the things I was put on Earth to do.”