Cincinnati Tradition And Chops Move To Open Class In 2018

Drum Corps Associates is proud to announce that Cincinnati Tradition and Chops have both made the decision to move themselves up into the Open Class for the 2018 season. Both of these Mid West corps have had a strong recruiting off season and now have the membership to make this move.

Cincinnati Tradition was formed in 1984 by Dan Hartwig and Tom Slade. They had a drum and flag corps at the time and with the Pride of Cincinnati folding this was a great time to add bugles to the mix. They started out by doing parades and exhibitions and by 1986 they were performing exhibitions at DCI shows through 2008. In 2008 they applied for DCA membership and passed only to find out they were short the 35 members needed to go to Championships. In 2009 they were still short the number of members needed but did compete in the DCA Mini Corps Competition in Rochester. In 2010 they applied for DCA membership again and this time they had the membership numbers they needed to compete in their first season of DCA competition. The 2010 season also turned out to be the last for Corps Director Tom Slade as a marching member. Tom felt it was too much pressure doing the corps directors job and marching at the same time. He also thinks he still holds the record for being the last person to march a valve/rotary bugle in DCA competition. In 2014 and 2015 the corps placed fourth at DCA Class A finals and followed that with back to back Championships in 2016 and 2017!

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