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God bless these women. I went through a trial and it wasn’t pleasant. I hope their outcome is better than mine. At least, people are more aware and supportive than they were in the ‘60’s.

I think one of the most eye-popping claims in his lawsuit against YEA is that he is demanding pay for unused vacation time. This from a man who consistently REFUSED to take vacations and discussed frequently on his social media how he hated vacations, didn't want to take them, avoided doing it for years, and only reluctantly took some time away near the end. And now he wants to be paid for the time that he adamantly, and publicly, insisted he wasn't going to use. What a piece of work.

with this being the first year without the influence of a certain somebody, i can't help but be extremely excited for hopefully some fresh ideas, whether they be from a musical or a design standpoint! I hope that some details start to come out soon...this is really one of the worst times of year to be a drum corps fan.

This I Believe !

I'm glad to see the legal system responding. Up until now it's just been the activity and organization responding. We'll need to let this play out obviously - George

Had a nice chat recently with a young man who marched C2 in '18, and he basically said the whole situation helped bring them closer together... and they've moved on, focusing on the job at hand for 2019. I would imagine the same applies to the Cadets.

I fear the Hopocalypse has a way to go before we can be sure the cancer is excised. That said - Slay the dragons. All of them - no matter wherever nor whoever they are. Bad news NEVER gets better with age - & DCI needs to realize this

sad it came to this yes, but it finally forced drum corps to wake up to these issues we've all discussed to death on here. Sadly sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can get back to the top

25+ years in the daily news business here. It is true that a reporter has no obligation to show a story to a source before it is published. Indeed, it is unethical to do so. (Do you want the mayor approving each story about him/her before it is published?) By extension, reporters are not obligated to reveal all whos, whats, and wheres in a story when asking a source for comment. At the same time, it also is true that a reporter is ethically obligated to inform the source of the whos, whats and wheres in those cases where the whos, whats and wheres are the basis for seeking the response in the first place. If Source A says Source B embezzled $10,000 from his employer, the reporter is obligated to relay to Source B the name of the accuser, the amount being alleged to have been stolen, and the alleged victim -- not only as a matter of fairness, but also as a matter of obtaining a meaningful response. In such a situation, simply asking Source B "what do you think of the (anonymous, unspecified) accusations against you?" would elicit a meaningless response because Source B has no idea what he's being accused of. Similarly, telling Source B only that "Source A says you embezzled money. Any response?" is a failure of the fairness standard and also so vague that any response could be interpreted a thousand ways, which would be (again) unfair to Source B and frustrating to readers. So, in this specific case involving Dan, everything hinges on the specifics. It may be true that they "knew going in that Dan was not going to talk." Yet they still made the call, apparently. That's what serious news organizations, whose company includes the Inquirer, do.

$199k is not an absurd amount for a non-profit the size of YEA. Now there is an argument to be made that it was too much for GH because he was known to be a horrible CEO, but it isn't an absurd salary for that position by any stretch

On the upside, at least it’s not the photo with corps in the background.

Not a lawyer either, but I have a gut feeling that he may indeed be owed unused vacation time and that sort of stuff he theoretically "earned" while employed with YEA. The severance will be the the center of the lawsuit, IMO. I hope the old board did not place YEA at risk by "accepting" his resignation.

I have to agree.

I hate to say this... but the photo in that article smacks of being an "editorial photo." Surely there had to be a different shot they could have used. NOT defending Hop here, by any means... just the judgment used with this. Just my opinion.

Hats off to you.

I am making this a personal mission to promote the positive aspects of DCI and the marching arts. 😕 what a shame

Somebody did a study once If I recall, it showed that Hop was, by far, the most highly-paid director. I remember discussion at the time focused on the other profit-making entities (primarily USBs) and Hop's responsibilities in "running" them as businesses for justification of his higher pay. Most directors that get paid make fractions of this, and many, very many, get paid little or nothing.

In my case, I find the 35 years more troubling that the $199k. That’s just too long, IMO. Given that kind of absolute power for that long.... He probably believed he was omnipotent.

They did.

I remember hearing somewhere that they did. Could be wrong.

Though some people loved the uniforms, others were less than thrilled, and the uniforms were ordered prior to someone’s departure. So there was one reminder. That being said, as someone who saw Cadets early in the last season and at Allentown and Indy, the changes throughout the season made sense and worked, which was a huge departure from the recent past, so how a complete season without the former director will be interesting to see.

I think the answer is simple. They can be reprogrammed in so many ways, you'd never need to buy backdrops again. I think they only touched the surface of what could really be achievable with them in an aesthetic sense. Much more is possible with the right artistic and creative staff.

yup. Having the entire planning process without interference will be a good thing.

This isn't it.

he won't control that budget

I tend to agree. I said previously I wanted to see this play out and let the system work. He is still innocent till proven guilty.

hopefully not "sold to DCI corps XXX"

Very excited for Cadets camp (a short 20 minute ride from our house!) this weekend. I'm hearing really good things about the 2019 Cadets!

amen brother - anyone who thinks the two activities aren't attached at the hip (and IMO that's a good thing) isn't paying attention I always laugh when folks claim this is OT

I was just about to write that Carmel's show is what Phantom would look like if they actually designed good shows in the modern era.

It's gone well with those staff who moved on to Boston.

Picture ain’t helping... can’t even quote sisters reaction and she know lot of Corps people

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2018/11/former-drum-and-bugle-corps-director-with-midstate-tie-charged-with-sexually-assaulting-2-women.html

Sis just texted and in local Harrisburg online paper (pennlive) as GH has been a local for a while. Nasty tailed comments rolling in from people who have no idea what a dc is.

"I would never belong to an organization that I did not control." -- GH I'm not buddy, buddy with every director, but many have passed my doorstep and spent the night, and I've never heard of or talked to one who had the same viewpoint as Hop. OK, that's probably not saying a lot. But, yeah, there's that.

199k a year... talked about ###### up priorities...... Hope everyone who donates to a corps knows how much staff is being paid.

One of the most famous and powerful people in drum corps history gets charged with 2 counts of sexual assault, and it's "only a ledge on the long fall to rock bottom." 😟

Carmel boring? I loved it and the focus on music, and fidelity to originals. Prompted me to dig out my Lorin Maazel/Berlin Philharmonic "The Ring without Words" CD (highly recommended).

You mean the unknown unknowns instead of the known unknowns. Well in this activity its more the known yet unspokens....

As Hop is known for saying..."trust the process."

many parallels to the accusations against Bill Cosby

I don't know about most schools, but my kids' band competes in weekly contests where often there might be only one or two schools in a class - - yet there's physical trophies given for each caption in a class. The band accumulates a lot of these smaller caption trophies. At the year end banquet, they have a tradition of gifting these caption trophies to seniors., usually each senior chooses a particular one! It ends up almost like a Yankee Swap.

have they officially met as a full board? that may be the hold up

The sad part in all of this is who else in DCI will take the fall with Hopkins. There are probably several regulars that traveled on the Hopkins "party bus" and his inner circle who are sweating more this morning.

Yes but you can't publish if your story details are not locked down. No publisher would push out an incomplete report.

And then he’ll change it three times in a two month span.

GH might ultimately receive "The Power of 10".... years.

That quote from Federalist #65 can cut both ways, of course. It's a discussion of the proposed Senate's powers for trying officials who have been impeached. Hamilton explicitly notes that this is a political rather than a judicial proceeding, and in the line which you quote, he's observing not only that an elected official whose conduct was proper might be convicted by members of an opposing party, but also that an elected official who conduct was improper might be acquitted by members of his own party.

Yes and no. We had a similar discussion three years ago when George D. (I think) posted a video of Broken Arrow's show, claiming that it had more G.E. than many drum corps shows. As it happens, Phantom used the same designer a year or two later! And it didn't work out for them. But in the course of the debate about that claim here then, one theme that emerged was that high-end marching bands generate their effect in part by (1) not being nearly as difficult as drum corps and (2) having a lot more people on the field. Actually those two are related in part. A marching band can have a whole lot of people generating visual effect while a whole lot of other people stand still and generate musical effect. Broken Arrow's show that year had even less playing-while-moving than BD's show last year or SCV's show this year.

Only if it's raining. Dulce et decorum est.