"That makes 49 corps in Rochester!" quipped Gil Silva, president of DCAssociates. Silva's total accounts for the competitive corps in Open Class and Class A, the alumni corps and minicorps. Silva made this comment on Sunday, August 19, at Alliance's initial home show, in Alpharetta, GA, in the critique.

Dick Pronti, co-coordinator of DCA Individuals & Ensembles, and I had just talked. Pronti had informed me that the latest minicorps count "is now up to 19, with the additions of Imperials of Massachusetts, Music City Legend and Carolina (Gold)." That's going to be one busy stage. (Update: 6:35 PM CDT, Thursday, August 23: Director Scott Rhodes of Music City Legend e-mailed Dick Pronti that MCL will not enter minicorps per a phone chat with Pronti. So, 18 minicorps are entered.)

Pronti also stated, "The stage will be flipped to the side. Better acoustics. More people can be closer to the stage. The party remains, but they will be split into the two rear corners."

Mayhaps I'm sipping sweet tea by Lake Corpsdom, but my life sure got busy recently. My poor cell phone rang so much that I had to put it in vibrate mode to soothe folks around me. I haven't called so many people since I lost my li'l black book and had to replace all the phone numbers.

Suffice it to say, all is well now. There are plenty of people in the Peach State for DCInternational to thank for aid recently. DCI's Jeff Cox wishes to thank Terry Reilly of Alliance et al. who provided 105 needed names, and many Atlanta CorpsVets, such as Ian Edwards, RJ Scott, Tom Colgan, Bill Wear, Jerald Sheets...Several corps were helped with housing thanks to the efforts of the CorpsVets, Alliance and more.

I woke up after several days of phoning and text messaging to find I was still tired, especially when the alarm was my cell. Beware telling folks, "Call at any hour." They'll just do that! I got up that day to find my personal batteries still needed charging and my cell was hoarse.

"Once Upon A Time" meets "Someday"

(The basic facts of this particular story are true. Variations have played out throughout the land for years. May it ever be so.)

Once upon a time, in a more or less remote corner of the drum corps world, a group of good folks convinced the local law enforcement authorities of the benefits to the community of forming a youth musical group. And so it came to pass that some horns, drums, flags and other necessities were acquired, along with volunteer instructors who set about the task of bringing order to chaos.

Within a few seasons, the little corps was doing quite a respectable job of representing the town, which had heretofore been known primarily as a repository of sports memorabilia. By the mid-1980s, the little corps had begun to make appearances at some fairly prestigious shows, with fairly predictable results. This is called “dues paying” in corps circles.