FrankBeMe

Yes there was. The Reader's Digest version In 1973, around mid- season mind you, the Imperials of St. Patrick from Milwaukee and the Thunderbolts from Cedarburg merged. They wore the uniforms of both corps (St. Pat's wore green, Thunderbolts were kind of white jackets with red and blue in the sashes and the trimmings) and played the music of both. They were huge by even today's standards. Some will say they were terrible.....but they weren't. They scored well for the most part but didn't make finals at DCI--in fact, their score was booed when it was announced! The next year, 1974, they changed their name to Pioneer!

I never got one either....and now I feel slighted by DCI!

I believe it was....in 72 you could form up on the back sideline but you then had to march into the end zone and then onto the field. I was thinking that was how it was in 73 also, but I seem to remember some corps coming on strictly from the back sideline.

The Thing should have made finals! 1973--we (Northernaires) won two shows on the 4th of July...and did three parades....and FINALLY beat the freakin' Mariners! And St. Paul Scouts too. Well at least during my time there we beat them both. And our drumline took high drums at both Michigan and Wisconsin Legion. (Obviously Kilties, Madison and Blue Star weren't there)

Crossmen are in Texas in name only. Take a look from DCI's website: Cadets 601 W. Hamilton St. Allentown, PA 18101-2103 Tel. 610-821-0345 Fax. 610-821-1451 George Hopkins, Director hopkins@yea.org Crossmen 601 W. Hamilton St. San Antonio, TX 18101-2103 Tel. 610-821-0345 Fax. 610-821-1451 Mark Chambers, Director mark@yea.org http://www.yea.org/crossmen Same exact street addresses, zip codes and phone numbers in both Allentown and San Antonio. Wonder how much snail mail to Crossmen comes back as undeliverable.

Another reason local support won't last much longer. Luckily for current D1's and II/IIIs to some extent, most locals either 1. never heard of drum corps or 2. have no clue that there are zero members or staff from the city they're suppose to be from. 3. they don't realize that the vast majority of membership are actually adults.

Lone Star Sky Ryders Alamo Marksmen Night Hawks

Like Eklipse?

American Woodmen New American Woodmen Royalaires Page Park Cadets Memorial Lancers Prince Hall Lancers Quiet Storm

Like the VIPs were?

The members make the decision who to join. If they didn't like constant narration or whatever else, they'd join another corps who doesn't narrate. So yes, the members do have something to do with it.

It was 82 or 83 that I saw people wearing buttons that said "Anybody but Blue Devils" Shut up and play is tame sheesh. A valid opinion, but still tame. It's no different than the bumper stickers that say "Hang Up and Drive!" Heck, I was at a U of Missouri game once, they were playing Army but that's not important. I saw a guy there wearing a shirt that said "Nebraska Sucks." Heck there's still t-shirts being sold that say "The Bears Still Suck."

Interesting pie chart on ages. According to the chart, 13% of members are 17 and younger. That means then that 87% are adults, with 32% ages 21 and 22.

Fran, you have my prayers.....hang in there and just be there for her

Same for Cavaliers and Madison. Their shows led Tony Schlecta, from the VFW, to proclaim that there wouldn't be any dancing, prancing, clowns, elves, skipping or anything else that the two corps were doing. Cavaliers didn't do VFW nationals that. Madison did and, although I didn't see it, it's most likely that their "straight" show lost a lot with all the banned stuff not being done. A guy I was stationed with had an interesting on 1982 Phantom--the second edition of Spartacus. He was all worked up about the hornline doing their fist up in the air salute--asked me why they were doing the Nazi salute---and he thought the guard in chains crawling on the ground promoted S&M. I know of one person who didn't like a corps called the Patriots using USSR flags (Patriots 1999). Ok, I didn't like it either but I did like the show.

Argonne also had a really bad drumline the first part of the 1971 season. A bit over half way through, Mitch Markovich was brought in. He got rid of the high stepper snares (the ones marching bands used back then) and worked them hard to where they were able to place higher overall and went on to take 6th at VFW that year and win Legion nationals by five points over the Cavaliers.

When I was driving for CapitolAires (1993) I was looking through the US Open program and saw that they had wrong All-girl champion listed for 1975. It was actually the CapitolAires during their streak of three wins in a row there. I found someone who was in charge of the program and told her about it. I figured that I had done my part and I thought the lady might not do anything about. When we went there in 1994, I grabbed a program as soon as I could....and they had corrected it!! I was happy :) The corps they had listed for winning AG in 75 was the Fire-ettes who didn't win until 1977. And also in 94....we had one of those TV/VCR combo things. Well, guess who was suppose to put it on the bus? My daughter of course! We were near Mansfield when someone noticed it missing. So, we had to turn around and went back to Marion to get it. Kids!

They had that list that started with a bottom corps who had been beaten by another and worked it all the way up to Marquis beating Phantom. It was just some humor to show that this corps at the very bottom could have placed 4th at DCI. I wouldn't call last night an upset. As close as the upper crust of the corps are so far, anything can happen and probably will. There have been some pretty big score and placement switches between a prelim and a final. For example, all-girl class at 1976 US Open Prelims Fire-ettes 66.00 CapitolAires 58.20 Finals CapitolAires 66.00 Fire-ettes 64.65 and those full show prelims....but back in the day of short show in prelims and full show at finals...there all kinds of whacky scoring differences and changed placements and other stuff that happened.

Gee thanks a lot Jeff! :P

That would be correct. The rituals.....there are schools around here where they still do the Pledge....believe me when I first ran into that, it shocked me because this was in Madison. However, due to the political correctness crap of the day, kids didn't have to stand and recite it if they didn't want to. Talk about cringing with smoke coming out of my ears. Of course no one can say that they're wrong to just sit there, unless you want to be accused of the horrible crime of imposing Americanism and Christianity on the kids by making them stand with hand over heart.

^OO^ ^OO^ Thank you! To add.....it's sad that I can be either saluting the flag or the hand over heart....but there's a lot of times when you feel almost alone because no one around you is doing it. They're all jaw jacking, annoying everyone by talking on their cell phones...they probably don't even know we have a flag. And yes, with the flags of other nations, all that's required is standing at attention. The entire US Flag Code

Southwind has been on their own for a few years now.....which makes me wonder why their logo is still on the sign in front of the building where the Scouts HQ is. I'm not sure if Cap Sound's is still on there though. The board decided to toss Cap Sound out to the wolves which transformed a rather good DII corps into a not so competative DIII.

38 years ago....my first show with Northernaires. It was the closest I ever came to beating Madison.

That is true. Sponsoring a corps got too expensive. Just looking at the pay scales for VFW finals back when I was marching, I never saw it go past $1200 or so for winning, and around four or five hundred dollars for 12th. Legion was even less for winning. So if that's all they paid out at their championships, just think what the individual posts and churches gave to their corps. If DCI wouldn't have happened....it would have eventually just because of the build up of frustration toward the VFW and Legion and their rules, which many thought took away from any creativity in shows. For example with VFW, you had to stay between 128 and 132 beats per minute which was actually it's own individual caption called "Cadence" and was worth 10 points, same as the inspection caption (Legion just treated inspection more or less as a penelty as they had no caption just for that). If they had waited a few years it might have different in some ways. There were some director changes by 1980 of the original corps who started DCI. For example Scott Stewart in Madison. He would have had a part in creating DCI instead of just being annoyed by it. There's just so many possibilities that anything could have happened. But most likely, a DCI type organization would have eventually been created, just not identical to what was created.

Named after the VFW's own Tony Schelcta. Kenny used that for the solo in "Rocknormanoff's Fifth" on the "Best of the Kilts" album back between the 70 and 71 season. That's part of what makes Kenny fun.....give him your horn to fix up a bit...you never know what you'll get back!! :P