{"id":385285,"date":"2026-07-03T19:38:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T19:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385285\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T19:38:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T19:38:45","slug":"san-francisco-ymca-reflects-on-death-of-village-peoples-victor-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385285\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco YMCA reflects on death of Village People’s Victor Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though the Y is a national organization, Village People\u2019s 1978 single \u201cY.M.C.A.\u201d was inspired by the YMCA of Greater San Francisco<\/a>, where lyricist and lead singer Victor Willis grew up.<\/p>\n

Tuesday night, Willis\u2019s wife posted on social media that her husband died of a \u201cshort, but aggressive illness\u201d at the age of 74.<\/p>\n

Continue reading for free<\/p>\n

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\t\tTagged: community organizations<\/a>,\u00a0disco<\/a>,\u00a0entertainment industry<\/a>,\u00a0Golden Gate Avenue Central YMCA.<\/a>,\u00a0Haight-Ashbury<\/a>,\u00a0San Francisco<\/a>\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Another Craig Newmark School of Journalism student, Valerie is looking forward to sharpening her deadline reporting skills while getting to know the Bay Area. Her interests include climate adaptation, community issues and LGBTQ+ reporting.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Valerie Conklin, Bay City News\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the Y is a national organization, Village People\u2019s 1978 single \u201cY.M.C.A.\u201d was inspired by the YMCA of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1253,19397,26596,155507,27144,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-385285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-community-organizations","tag-disco","tag-entertainment-industry","tag-golden-gate-avenue-central-ymca","tag-haight-ashbury","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}