C. Hax McCullough Click photo for larger image.

C. Hax McCullough Jr. was a writer, an advocate of the arts and an enthusiastic supporter of the city's classical music community, but mostly he was a man who loved Pittsburgh and devoted his career to promoting it.

When he died Monday at 81 from complications of multiple sclerosis, he was doing what he loved best -- writing the history of his beloved Pittsburgh Symphony. Mr. McCullough purchased his first season ticket when he was 11, and his support of the PSO never wavered.

"What he's written so far might be the best thing he's done," said Robert Bowden, the Pittsburgh artist who is designing the book, the official history of the orchestra. "He had finished about 60 percent of it when he had to break it off."

Mr. McCullough's previous book, "The Illustrated History of Opera in Pittsburgh," was published for the Pittsburgh Opera in 2005 and also designed by Mr. Bowden. Retired Pittsburgh Post-Gazette music critic Robert Croan called it "a labor of love and a crowning life achievement" for its author.

Mr. McCullough is member of a long-established Pittsburgh family of businessmen and writers, including award-winning historian David McCullough.

"He was a wonderful example as the older brother," David McCullough recalled yesterday. "He introduced us to music, the love of travel. He had a very infectious spirit. After Hax decided to go to Yale, we all followed him there."

Hax McCullough died at UPMC St. Margaret after a long illness, "but the flame of his mind was blazing right up to the end," his brother said. "He was extremely bright and knew so much about opera, classical music and was a real fount of knowledge about Pittsburgh. He loved that city."

His firm, McCullough Communications, produced the opera's programs from 1971 to 1991. The company also published similar publications for the Pittsburgh CLO, the Y Recital Series, the Mendelsohn Choir and other music organizations.

"Hax felt that audiences who came to Heinz Hall deserved fine magazines," recalled Mary Brignano, his longtime business partner. "The hall had just opened and it was such a shot in the arm for the arts in Pittsburgh. The beauty of Heinz Hall pervaded the thinking about the quality of the programs."

But, the opera refused to fund the idea, Mrs. Brignano said, so Mr. McCullough tried a different approach.

"He came up with the idea of giving the programs to the opera and sharing the advertising revenue with it. It was a huge risk," she said. "If he couldn't sell enough ads to pay the printer, he risked losing a lot of money."

In pitching the opera to city businesses, Mr. McCullough promoted the concept of a partnership of arts groups and companies, Mrs. Brignano believes.

"He went out day after day and talked the corporations and businesses into supporting the arts," she said. "He wasn't asking these businesses just to buy an ad. He was asking them to partner with him and the arts."

Mr. McCullough also created a series of ad campaigns for local businesses, many of them drawing on Pittsburgh history. Clients included several banks, Allegheny International, PPG Industries and Parker/Hunter.

He was also the author of numerous histories of Pittsburgh companies including Mellon Bank, Union Switch and Signal, and Pittsburgh Natural Gas.

"He made you feel you were working not to collect a paycheck but to make Pittsburgh a better place," Mary Brignano, his longtime business partner, said.

In 1959, Mr. McCullough was diagnosed with MS and lost the use of his right arm. As the disease progressed, he became wheelchair-bound but continued to work, attend concerts and travel abroad.

"He had to write everything in longhand and with his left hand," recalled Mr. Bowden, "but he had so much desire to get things done that it didn't stop him. He had more guts than anybody I know."

"The first thing he had to give up was playing the violin," said his widow, Jean, "but we still managed to get to Europe most years until around 1985."

Mr. McCullough's love of classical music began in childhood and he played the violin in the Pittsburgh Public Schools' All-City High School Orchestra while attending Peabody High School.

Mr. McCullough is the oldest of four brothers whose grandfather founded McCullough Electric Co. in 1904. It continues in business today under brother George.

James is a retired oceanographer and David is the Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer All were reared in Point Breeze.

After meeting in New York City and marrying in 1953, the couple returned to Pittsburgh, where Mr. McCullough worked in advertising at PPG. He formed an advertising-public relations firm with Steven Osgood in 1965 and his own firm in 1972.

Mr. McCullough closed his business ran his advertising-public relations firm until it closed in 1990, but he continued to write at home. "He wrote three books, and I acted as kind of a research assistant," said Mrs. McCullough, a board member of the Carnegie Museum of Art and retired art and architecture instructor.

The other books were histories of West Penn Hospital and the Pittsburgh Golf Club.

The McCulloughs continued an active social life, holding musical parties at their home and the Pittsburgh Golf Club, and attending the symphony as season subscribers.

"He used to say that at the end of a hard week those Friday evening concerts just washed away the tension," said Mrs. Brignano. "At intermission, he was always surrounded by fans and friends."

Mr. McCullough was president of the Mendelsohn Choir and a board member emeritus, served nine years on the board of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and belonged to the Pittsburgh Golf Club, the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club and the Fox Chapel Racquet Club.

He and his wife resided in Fox Chapel for 49 years.

Along with his wife and brothers, he is survived by three sons, Malcolm of Ann Arbor, Mich., Christian H. McCullough III of McLean, Va., and Alexander R., of Boulder, Colo.; and four grandchildren.

Friends will be received following services Friday at 2 p.m. at Third Presbyterian Church, Fifth and Negley avenues, Shadyside. Burial will be in Allegheny Cemetery.

Contributions may be sent to the Pittsburgh Symphony