10th Anniversary Menomonie Show To Host ’50s-60s Eau Claire Boys Corps Reunion

On Father’s Day in 2000, a group of Menomonie, Wisconsin High School Band Boosters brought drum corps back to Wisconsin’s Chippewa Valley for the first time in more than two dozen years, sponsoring the first Drums Along the Red Cedar (DARC) competition. During the months that followed, others from the community joined with them to reorganize the event under the Greater Menomonie Area Community Foundation, and it was decided to wait for completion of the new Don and Nona Williams Stadium at the University of Wisconsin-Stout to re-introduce the event in 2002.

On Father’s Day in 2004, a group of Alumni of the Eau Claire Sundowners Drum and Bugle Corps who had experienced the 2003 DARC show in it’s new venue organized a weekend reunion with social gatherings in Eau Claire and an outing to the DARC competition in Menomonie.  (Phantom Regiment, to be featured at DARC’09, was directed for several years by an alumnus of the Eau Claire Sundowners, Pat Seidling.) This 2004 reunion drew alumni from coast to coast to the Chippewa Valley.  From this reunion, a group was formed which is spearheading efforts to develop a new corps in the area, the Chippewa Valley Brigade.

Now, an Eau Claire drum corps group from an earlier era has scheduled a reunion for June 20 and 21, 2009 to coincide with the 10th anniversary of DARC. The Eau Claire Boys Drum and Bugle Corps Alumni Association consists of former members of the Scouts Band, the Eau Claire Explorer Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps, and the Eau Claire Boys Drum and Bugle Corps. The group has built a memorial to honor founding father, Walt Brown, at the VFW Post 305 in Eau Claire, commemorating his key leadership from 1953 to 1969. The memorial includes a roster of all corps members during that time, often called the "Golden Age" of drum and bugle corps. The Association invites any of the nearly 800 corps members of that era to join in a weekend of drum corps reminiscing.

To learn more about or register for the 2009 Eau Claire Drum Corps Reunion, visit www.ecboysdrumcorps.org or call Larry Hamler:
715-834-1247. To learn more about, or purchase tickets for DARC’09, visit www.darc.us or call 1-(888) 547-6478. To learn more about the Chippewa Valley Brigade, visit: www.cvbrigade.org or call:  715-726-9094.