World Drum Corps Hall Of Fame Member George Hayek Passes Away
George Hayek, the last original member of the Hawthorne Caballeros Drum and Bugle Corps, passed away October 12 at age 90, after recently attending the 2016 New Jersey Drum Corps Hall of Fame induction ceremony. He was born October 1, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan.
He had been a member of the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame since 1994, regularly attending all subsequent banquet and induction ceremonies on Labor Day weekend. He was also inducted as a member of the New Jersey Drum Corps Hall of Fame in 2002.
Funeral services will begin at 9 am Tuesday October 18 at Allwood Funeral Home, 660 Allwood Road in Clifton, New Jersey followed by 10 am Mass at Sacred Heart Armenian Catholic Church, 155 Long Hill Road, Little Falls. Burial will follow at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.
Memorial donations are welcome to the Hawthorne Caballeros Scholarship Fund, PO Box 2148, Wayne, New Jersey 07470 or the Hawthorne Caballeros Alumni Association, 49 Sand Hill Road, Vernon, New Jersey 07462.
He started his drum corps activity in 1936 as a drummer with the Sacred Heart Crusaders, a small church corps in Paterson, New Jersey. He became a snare drummer with St. George Cadets of Paterson in 1939.
He served in the Army Air Corps in the Pacific theatre during World War II, then resumed his drum corps activities in 1946 by helping to found a new corps along with the late Jim Costello, a charter member of the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame, and several other former St. George Cadets: the Hawthorne Caballeros. He played snare drum with Caballeros until 1956, then played tenor drum until 1971.
He taught both drumming and drill to a number of corps, and trained hundreds of young people who went to on to play with a number of top competing corps. He initiated the Hawthorne Drum Corps Grand Prix in Clifton in 1964 and remained chairman for 52 years.
He was also affiliated with the All Coast Color Guard Judging Association. He helped organize the Caballeros Alumni Corps in 1994, and was still marching with the group well into the 2000’s and travelling extensively with them.
He owned and operated George’s Market in Paterson, New Jersey from 1946 till his retirement in 2006. He was a member of the American Legion Post 199 in Hawthorne and the John Raad Post in Paterson.
He is predeceased by Lorraine, his wife of 57 years, his son Ronald and sister Agnes Hayek. He is survived by sons Charles and Robert Hayek both of Clifton; two grandchildren, Christian and Sarah Hayek: daughter in law Lizbeth Hayek of Glen Rock and sisters Lorice Sabeh and Antoinette Tuzzolo, both of Clifton.
The World Drum Corps Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization honoring those individuals who have contributed significantly over many years to the development and continuing excellence drum and bugle corps activity. The organization also seeks to preserve the history of the drum and bugle corps movement in North America by selecting a noteworthy junior and all age (senior) corps of the decade.
For more information about the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame visit the web site at http://www.worlddrumcorpshof.org
