In The News: Drum And Bugle Corps Returns To Welland

For a brief time last Sunday, the north end of the city was reverberating once again to the unmistakable sound of drums and bugles as the Optimists Alumni Drum and Bugle Corps held an open house at Auberge Richelieu.

The corps brought their road show to Welland as part of an ongoing mission to revitalize drum corps activity in southern Ontario.

Throughout the 1950s, 60s and well into the 70s, drum corps or trumpet bands as they were then known were thriving. In fact at one point in the mid-60s there were 17 trumpet bands just in the Niagara area. Some of these were the Welland-Crowland Lancers, Grantham Police Boys Band, Niagara Militaires and Port Dalhousie Guardsmen. By 1990, only four were still active in southern Ontario, Toronto Signals, Kingston Grenadiers, Kawartha Kavaliers and Dutch Boy from Kitchener.

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