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Reading Buccaneers Drum & Bugle Corps: Bill Snook 484-366-7969 director@readingbuccaneers.org READING BUCCANEERS ANNOUNCE 2015 HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES Reading, PA (November 4, 2015) – The Reading Buccaneers Drum & Bugle Corps announced today that Lee Deshler, Eric Kitchenman, Dan McGrogan and Tom Moore will be inducted into the Buccaneers Hall of Fame at the corps’ annual year-end banquet on Saturday, November 28, 2015. The Buccaneers Hall of Fame was established in 1995 to recognize the individuals who throughout the years have gone above and beyond to make the Reading Buccaneers Drum & Bugle Corps the great organization it is today. Deshler, Kitchenman, McGrogan and Moore join 96 other members of the Buccaneers Hall of Fame. Each of these individuals has made a lasting impact on the Buccaneers and the drum corps activity. LEE DESHLER’s association with the Buccaneers began in 1965, when he came from the Allentown Royals Drum and Bugle Corps to join the hornline as a 16 year old soprano player. That was the year the Buccaneers won the very first DCA Championship! He returned to march in 1966, 1967, and 1971 in the hornline, then after almost 30 years away, in 2005 Lee joined the Buccaneer Alumni Corps on second soprano where he remains today. He joined the competing corps’ Honor Guard in 2012 and experienced the thrill of winning another DCA Championship. In 2012, Lee was asked to co-chair the Buccaneers Hall of Fame committee. At DCA Championships in 2015, fifty years after his first year as a Buccaneer, Lee was on the field as a member of the Honor Guard and once again was elated to become a DCA World Champion! As the corps began to rise through the competitive ranks of DCA, and achieved a 2nd place finish in 1999, it became clear that the corps needed to bolster the caliber of the staff in order to take the next step to win a championship. When considering the visual designer position, ERIC KITCHENMAN was the clear choice. Eric became our visual designer and caption head from 2000 to 2004, during which time the corps had never (or since) fallen out of the top five. He left for one year and then returned to the corps in 2006 and 2007 to help the corps claim its second and third consecutive championships. During his time with the corps Eric truly became a Buccaneer! His passion for the activity and its members were clearly evident and as a result, Eric was a leader and an inspirational figure to the corps and the rest of the staff. DAN McGROGAN has been involved in marching music for over 30 years. Starting in 1985, Dan performed with the Steel City Ambassadors for 9 seasons. During this time, he was also a section leader and drill instructor for the IUP “Legend” Marching Band. As Dan grew in knowledge and experience, he moved to the instructional side, first teaching the sopranos at Steel City from 1989 through 1992. Dan went on to teach the fledging DCI corps from Pittsburgh, the Golden Lancers, leading them to 2 DCM championships and a silver medal at the 1996 DCI Division III championships. From 1997 through 2003, Dan taught and performed with the Westshoremen and Bushwackers. Impressive as that may be, Dan really got his chance to shine when he joined the brass staff of the Reading Buccaneers. From 2004 through 2007 Dan served as caption head and assistant caption head of the corps’ horn line. Then from 2009 through 2014, Dan served in various roles including teaching the tubas, mellophones and trumpets. He was also the high brass coordinator from 2010 through 2014. During that time, Dan was instrumental in bringing home eight DCA world championships, plus six Hy Dreitzer Memorial brass titles in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014. During this time Dan also worked with the Buccaneer Alumni Drum & Bugle Corps, where his contributions raised the performance level of the Alumni. His easy-going manner, knowledge, professionalism and constant smile seemed to bring out the best in performers young and old and earned him many friends for life. Dan ‘retired’ in 2015 to focus on his growing family with his wife Eileen and their two beautiful daughters, Delaney and Riley, but we all eagerly anticipate the time when he returns to his Family in Blue. TOM MOORE joined the corps in 2004, announcing that he wanted to help out in any way possible on our support staff. He said he wanted to help, and help he did. However, watching the corps progress week after week through the 2004 season, Tom was bitten by the bug and decided that he had to march in 2005. It was his first-ever competitive marching experience, at age 35. Tom confessed that it was one of the most grueling and difficult summers of his life, but also one of the most rewarding. Tom persevered through every challenge thrown his way and was not only rewarded with a championship but with two prestigious awards at the banquet that year: Most Improved Member of the brass line and Most Improved Visual member. After that season, Tom was appointed as the corps’ Public Relations Director, a position he has held since. Tom has been a champion of and spokesperson for the corps and has represented us well to the drum corps community and the community at large. He has been a strong advocate in the area of community outreach. He has prepared all of the corps’ press releases and announcements since 2006 and has coordinated various social media outlets, reported the corps’ competitive results to the Reading Eagle every week, represented the corps in front of Reading City Council, the County Commissioners and appeared as the corps’ representative on Berks Community Television to promote Spring Preview and Big Sounds in Motion events. Most recently Tom was part of a successful grant-writing effort with the Berks Arts Council. For all of these efforts, the things that are of most value to Tom are the relationships and friendships which he has garnered through the years and simply being a Buccaneer. For a complete list of all Hall of Fame inductees, please visit http://readingbuccaneers.org/public_html/hof.html, or www.readingbuccaneers.org for more information. Founded in 1957, the mission of the Reading Buccaneers Drum & Bugle Corps is to provide men and women of all ages a unique and enriching educational experience in the performing arts. The Buccaneers were founding members of Drum Corps Associates and won the first-ever DCA World Championships in 1965 and won thirteeen additional titles since.

Bucs spent the last three weeks with their normal rehearsal schedule: 7pm to 11pm Fridays, 8:30am to 8:30pm Saturdays and 9am to 4pm Sundays. They made some pennies doing the 5 parades in Maryland on the 4th, followed that up with a 10am to 7:30pm Saturday complete with corps picnic and history night immediately following and then finished things off with their normal 9am to 4pm Sunday...you know...just kinda been hanging out in Reading. As for Bridgeport...I hear it was purely economical.

C'mon drum corps community...help a brother out!!! Seriously, we are so close and this is so important to the drum corps! We only have until 11am Sunday and it truly only takes seconds. Like It, Share It...Love you! Peace! Bill Snook Assistant Director Reading Buccaneers Drum & Bugle Corps.

Hopefully this link will make it quicker! On behalf of the Reading Buccaneers I thank you for helping us! Bill Snook Assistant Director Reading Buccaneers

At least her view of the field won't be blocked!!!

mmmmmm....2 All the way!

As a member of the Big Sounds In Motion committee, and the resident geek of the group, I had been watching the radar throughout most of the day, in particular this line of storms that was crossing the state. We saw it coming and I brought it to the attention of the DCA officials just prior to the meeting with the corps directors. We spoke of the "what if" scenarios and decided we would start the show and any delay would result in a 30 minute warning until we began again keeping the show schedule...including the intermission. This was a decision made by the DCA officials and supported by the corps directors. The storm had approached faster than we thought and I made the call from the field to delay the show for the sake of safety of the performers and fans. When we made the announcement of a quick, but powerful storm...at the time it was just that. We tracked the storm via the web from the press box and watched as the front broke into two sections, with the second less of an impact (no lightning). The call was made to take the field around 8pm...and we did. Unfortunately, the second event seemed to have more of a rain impact then we thought. I spoke with Mr. Hershman following the anthems and asked if he wanted to proceed and his response was the following "if there is any group that can blow away this mess, it's the Skyliner Alumni"...and so they did! Kudos to Danny Fitz for going out there in extremely challenging weather conditions to play the anthems and thank you Skyliner Alumni for clearing the skies! As for parking on the grass lot...obviously starting the on-site show stuff at 9am and looking at the forecast of a 30 to 40% chance of rain, we made the call to proceed with our normal parking regiment of using the field for the convenience of our fans. We regret that some folks had difficulty in leaving the parking area, but we did what we could at the time to help as many as possible, including having a tow truck on stand-by and one of our volunteers actually using a few coolers of water to clean off the passenger side of the car that got the worst of it in the lot. Understand, the condition of this car was not the result of someone that made a concentrated effort to get out of the lot in a safe manner, but more of someone that wanted to just watch their tires spin. Our volunteer saw what had happened and wanted to do what he could to make the situation tolerable given the conditions...the owner appreciated it greatly. Our apologies to those who had difficulty in leaving the grass lot, our thanks to those that did it in a safe manner, and to those that found it necessary to "spin" their tires, the school district will appreciate the re-sodding efforts we will be providing. On behalf of the Big Sounds Committee, we thank all the members and staffs of the performing corps for hanging in there and putting on a great show! We thank Larry Hershman and all the DCA officials for their patience as we waited it out once again at Albright. We thank all our volunteers for making this show a huge success in spite of what mother nature has in store for us. And lastly, we thank the fans! Your support of all the shows on this circuit mean so much to these drum corps...simple words cannot express it...Thank you! Have a GREAT day and best of luck and safe travels to all those next weekend in Rochester! Bill Snook Big Sounds In motion

The center quad player for Reading was involved in a car accident on the way to Scranton early Saturday morning. He probably shouldn't have been on the field but knowing the person very well, his heart wouldn't let him sit idle. Thanks, Bill Snook