Richard Wesley Konter (1882–1979) was a Chief Radioman in the U.S. Navy, member of the Byrd Arctic and Antarctic Expeditions and a musician.
Dick's Ukulele Club was a regular heard on radio stations and events around New York City.
He also became the desired arranger to add ukulele tabs to the sheet music coming out of Tin Pan Alley.
Konter, with the help of pilot Floyd Bennett, smuggled a Martin 1K ukulele with a Horner Harmonica tied to the neck into a stack of furs in the airplane that made the first flight over the North Pole on May 9, 1926.
[8] They have published the results in A Stowaway Ukulele Revealed: Richard Konter & The Byrd Polar Expeditions.
Over 155 signatures are on the instrument, including President Calvin Coolidge, Amelia Earhart and Thomas Edison.
[10] From about 1930 to 1970, he led a band and a group of entertainers that performed in the New York area at children's shelters and hospitals for the chronically ill and at homes for the aged.
Konter first proposed to Johanna Cohen about 1926, they had met when she was a part of "Dick's Ukulele Club" but her father refused to allow the marriage due to the difference in age, she was only 21.