Updated WDCHOF Steve Cooley Background
World Drum Corps Hall of Fame inductee Steve Cooley, of Dunkirk, New York has been instructing and arranging for horn lines in New York, Pennsylvania and Ontario since 1970. An earlier news release contained errors in the years he was associated with several corps and omitted information about his judging experience. The correct information follows.
Steve Cooley has been a brass arranger or instructor for top-rated drum and bugle corps in western New York, southern Ontario and Pennsylvania. From 1961 to 1972, he played a baritone horn for the junior Geneva Appleknockers. His contributions as a brass arranger and instructor began in 1970, with the Appleknockers. He wrote for and taught the Appleknockers in 1971, when they were finalists in the U.S. Open. He arranged for and taught Dunkirk Patriots from 1973 to 1977. He taught and arranged for the horn line of the Hamburg Kingsmen in 1974 and the Pittsburgh Rockets in 1976. In 1976, he also instructed the Rochester Phoenix horn line. He crossed the border to teach the Guelph Royalaires horn line in 1978. He began a 25-year association as arranger and instructor with Erie Thunderbirds in 1979. From 1984 to 1988 and in 1990, he was brass arranger and instructor for Steel City Ambassadors of Pittsburgh, second place finishers in Drum Corps Associates (DCA) finals in 1986. He was arranger and instructor for Syracuse Brigadiers when the corps became active again as a parade unit in 1991 and when they returned to the contest field in 1992 and 1993. He was brass instructor with Rochester’s Crusaders from 2001 to 2003 and DCA world champion Empire Statesmen in 2004. He judged music for the New York All American Judges, New York State Federation of Contest Judges, DCA and Drum Corps International from 1972 to 1982.
Cooley is one of seven individuals who will be inducted into the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame during a ceremony in downtown Rochester’s Crowne Plaza Hotel as part of the 2008 Drum Corps Associates (DCA) championship tournament on Labor Day weekend
Since its founding in 1976 by the late Vince Bruni, of Rochester, NY, membership in the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame has grown from six charter members to 430 regular and associate members from the United States and Canada, who have contributed to the activity across North America, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Japan. Membership in 2008 includes 136 active and 104 deceased regular members and 166 active and 24 deceased associate members.
More information about the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame is available at www.worlddrumcorpshof.org/
