August 9 Exhibition Featuring Madison Scouts Alumni
For fans planning to be in Madison, WI, for the 34th Annual Drum Corps International Championships, now is the time to plan your "free" time so you can attend a very special evening of entertainment on Wednesday, August 9.
The Madison Scouts Alumni Reunion Corps, a 240-member drum and bugle corps assembled specifically for the 2006 season and to perform at the DCI Championships on Friday evening, August 11 at the conclusion of the semifinals competition, has added one more appearance that fans won’t want to miss.
The event will be held at Mansfield Stadium, located on the campus of Memorial High School in Madison, WI, at the intersection of Gammon Road and Mineral Point Road on the far west side of town. The venue seats 5,000 people and four groups will be featured, including Madison’s division III representative, Capital Sound; the Madison Scouts; the visiting European corps, Jubal from Dordrecht, The Netherlands; and, of course, the Madison Scouts Alumni Reunion Corps.
Food will be available for two hours prior to the gates opening at 7:00 PM, prepared by the Memorial High School Athletic Boosters. The first corps will step off promptly at 8:00 PM and the show should be concluded by 9:30 PM. All seating will be general admission and tickets are $10.00 for adults and $20.00 for a family (two adults, up to four children under age 12). Fans should be prepared to pay cash as there will be no printed tickets, no checks accepted and no credit card charges.
"The Voice of DCI," Brandt Crocker, will be the evening’s announcer.
A special seating area will be set aside on the 50 yard line at the top of the stadium so that members of the alumni corps can watch Capital Sound and the Madison Scouts, then the Madison Scouts will occupy the area in order to watch their brothers in the alumni corps perform their field show. Following the alumni corps performance, the Madison Scouts and the Madison Scouts Alumni Reunion Corps will gather on the track, close to the first row of the stadium — and joined by any alumni in the audience — to sing You’ll Never Walk Alone, the organization’s theme song enmasse. More than 400 voices are expected to participate.
For most of the 1950s and 1960s, the tune from the movie "Carousel" was used in the Madison Scouts’ field show and subsequently has been used in concerts and occasionally sung by members of the corps at competitions in place of using bugles to play off the field during retreat. It is a unifying piece of music that carries great meaning to every one of the nearly 6,000 young men who have marched in the Madison Scouts and Madison Junior Scouts since the corps’ founding in 1938.
Among the large honor guard will be an original member of the corps, Richard Goldberg, who celebrated his 80th birthday recently. His son, Robin, still lives in Madison and was a member of the corps from 1973 to 1976. Father and son will be joined by a number of other father/son teams and at least one set of twins who marched together in the corps, Boyd and Bart Garey.
To conclude the evening, Madison Scouts Alumni Reunion Corps Director Randy Ferrie will present an enlarged check representing the profit from the show to Madison Drum & Bugle Corps Association, Inc. Executive Director Sal Salas as a significant and meaningful "connection" between the men who performed in the corps uniform over nearly seven decades, to the current members of the Madison Scouts who are now carrying on the traditions of the organization.
Nearly every one of the corps’ 68 seasons up to this year are represented in the alumni corps and there are even graduates from as recently as the 2005 season marching.
This is a night no one should miss.
Add Wednesday, August 9, to your Madison plans today!
