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I just wanted to put my .02 cents in on this issue. I was with the corps on tour the past couple days working on material for the website/promotional items for next season. As a general statement, Pioneer is light years ahead of where they were when I saw them two days before their first show of the season. There were a lot of issues prior to the season that really took a toll on the corps' progress. That's not the kids fault and all said and done, the members have actually rebounded from a rocky spring to have a really awesome season. Scores aside, everyone is extremely happy with how things have progressed. Talking to the staff, the scores are somewhat of a "sore" subject around some of them. There's a definite sense that there should be a little more movement in the upward direction. They're getting great feedback from the judges, and are applying that feedback, but they're not being rewarded for the changes that they make. But, that's the way that drum corps works sometimes. Nobody is crying about it. The kids are having a great time. The new uniforms look great. The crowd is cheering. And last, but not least, Pioneer's already looking forward to an even better 2008 season. Not to throw the 2007 season under the bus or anything because the season's no where near over. But, there's a lot of excitement for the 2008 season already. A couple of new doors have opened in the area of recruitment which should lead to more members next season. A lot of new ideas involving the corps are being floated around that should help to boost membership, alumni support, and community involvement. And last but not least, I think everyone around the corps is dedicated to making the corps Better Every Day! So, while we may be in last place right now, better days are still ahead. After all, there is no where to go but up!

Actually, draws like this in my opinion will help Pioneer. It will give them a better read on where their show stands compared to the top corps in Division I. It's hard to get an accurate score going on right after the Division II/III corps. I can recall times where Pioneer has gone on later in a show and actually had their score go up from previous contests. On the flip side, it can really expose some of the weaknesses in the show and lead to a lower score than expected. In any event, it's always more fun to play to a larger crowd.

I would expect to see Pioneer's scores starting to go up next week. When I stopped at Pioneerland one week ago, they didn't have the drill for the closer, the percussion didn't have the music for the closer, and in general the entire show was not "peformance ready". I was thoroughly shocked, although I'm not going to complain, that they scored in the mid 50's the first show out. In any event, they've had a lot of work to do in the past week and I think the progress is really going to start to show soon. As far as age and the rigors of tour, I don't think that has anything to do with things. While the corps is young, it does have a lot of experienced members mixed in. They'll come around, just give them time!

I loved those uniforms! But, you are correct... they are literally six feet deep. Some where near the 32 yard line on side 1 at Pioneerland. I have the pictures of the "burial" to prove it. Although, in this day and age, it would be fairly simple to go to any of the major uniform companies with a picture and say "make this" and make it modern. I'll also defend the original version of the current uniform when we had the khaki pants with the spats. They were unique, something that's not often found now days in many of the uniforms in drum corps or even marching band.

You have hit on somewhat of an area here. If you look at our most successful section, it is the percussion section. And if you look at the staff in that section, it's had the lowest staff turnover rate out of all of the sections. Mickey Hartzog was caption head for years, and now Stuart Spoon (who worked right under Mickey) has taken over as caption head. There has been a certain continuity within that section's staff that extends almost 10 years. On the flip side, the rest of the captions have seen that "revolving door" effect. Staffers come on, do two or three years, and then move on... either to bigger/better corps or on to other things in life. So, in that respect, I guess this could be somewhat of an issue in the long run. But, I will say this, the majority of the staff members put their heart and soul into both the show and the kids... regardless of whether they're planning on being with Pioneer long term or short term. But I can see where you're coming from. Heck, I had 4 different marching styles in my 8 years with Pioneer. So I can definitely understand where the continuity issue could have a big effect!

I've asked this question myself several times. I have great memories from 1993-96 and the championships and near championships from those years. Thinking back to those times, it's easy to think that going back to Division II/III is a good idea. However, there are a lot of factors that play into this decision. I know for a fact that the financial aspect of things plays a big role in the decision to continue to compete at the Division I level. Touring at the Division I level pays a ton better than touring at the Division II/III level. Not to mention, participating at the Division I level offers members an experience that cannot be matched by competing at the Division II/III level. The Division II/III tour is a skeleton of what it was back in the day when I had such great memories of it. Going back to Division II/III would significantly cut back on the number of shows that Pioneer got to participate in, as well as limit the diversity of the locations the corps got to visit. This isn't meant as an insult against the corps in Division II/III today. It's just the facts that exist today with the demise of DCM and many of the great Division II/III events. Also, to kind of counter the aspect that it's impossible to compete at the Division I level with a small horn line, I think our 1999 and 2000 seasons prove that wrong. Granted, those years weren't all that impressive on the final scoreboard, but we were semi-finalists AND the corps sounded pretty balanced with the drum line those years even though we had small horn lines. It's a training process that works itself out by the end of the season, and age/experience have little to do with it. If anything, it's the experience of the staff that plays the biggest role in show design and bringing out the best in each member. And lastly, having been with Pioneer in one way or another for the past 14 years, it's my honest opinion that the judges don't hold the fact that we're Pioneer against us. Did I always agree with the scores that we got? No, definitely not. But, taking a line from Tony Stewart from this past weekend on the NASCAR circuit, the minute that I believe that DCI is scripting how corps are going to finish, I'll walk away from the activity. DCI has been around too long to risk its integrity by intentionally scoring Pioneer or any other corps way below what they should be scoring. It's easy to play Monday morning quarterback and talk about how great or how bad a show was. But in the end, you weren't on the field hearing/seeing the same thing that the judges were. Whatever score the judges give us or any other corps, there's usually a legitimate reason behind it. Simple as that.

basscreature... The audio doesn't line up all the way through on the YouTube version for some reason. Something happened when they encoded it that makes it seem like there's a tear in the show. The original file on my computer is fine. I might try uploading it again. If that doesn't work, I'll just make the original file available on the Pioneer website.

As promised, many of the videos are now online. You can check out Pioneer, Racine Scouts, Men of Brass, and Midwest Legends by clicking over to the Pioneer Website!

You guys are killing me... Forget the review... A majority of the show/concert will be available online within the next day or so. I'm in the process of piecing together all of footage and hope to have the finished product online tonight or tomorrow. Everyone can watch and judge from that.

Everybody is putting in their .02 cents on web hosting. Most of the advice that's been given has been pretty accurate. Although, there seems to be some debate over whether you should go with a gigantic hosting company or a small/local hosting company. I've worked with a variety of web hosts for my different clients, usually because they had already picked a hosting company before bringing me on. Some of the hosting companies were big, while others I could have sworn were hosted on a server in someone's basement closet. The worst case scenario that I encountered was a situation where a small hosting company decided that it was going to upgrade it's servers, and in the process somehow lost all of the sites that were hosted on the server. For me that wasn't catastrophic because I had multiple back up copies of the site and was able to upload the site again the same day. Other clients of this company apparently weren't as smart and weren't able to recover their site as quickly. Eventually, all of the chaos resulted in the hosting company disappearing into thin air one day. No warnings or no emails stating why. Just poof and they were gone. On the flip side, larger companies frequently offer a wide variety of hosting options that are pretty dependable. Most larger hosting companies guarantee up time to be at least 99%, and have significant systems in place to ensure that. Many of the people that I work with are quick to take the lowest price that they can find when selecting a web host. Unfortunately, to a certain extent, the old saying that you get what you pay for still holds true. One of the companies that I designed and run the website for had previously signed up for web hosting through a fairly large company. However, they had picked the cheapest package that they could get. The end result is that their server doesn't support anything. And when I say "anything", I mean that if you put up anything outside of basic html pages and images, you're going to encounter problems. So beware of prices that seem to be too good to be true. But in general, the larger companies are all starting to offer similar priced packages that offer many of the same features. Best thing I can suggest is make a list of the features that you're looking for, and then compare the web hosts that have the features that you are looking for and find the one with the best price that will suit your needs. If you don't like the web host, you can always switch down the road.

I'll second this as well. While there is some truth to the fact that webmasters/developers/"whatever title you want to give them" are a dime or dozen, there are plenty of opportunities to make good money in this industry. While it may be cheaper to subcontract work out to foreign countries, the theory that you get what you pay for rings true. I've heard horror stories from people who've had sites designed by "local" companies, only to find out that local company subcontracted the project out to the lowest bidder... who just happened to be thousands of miles away. In one case, after dozens of revisions, one client still had a problem with the word "store" being spelled strore all over their website! On the flip side, I know of a couple people that I've worked with in the past, or even marched with, that make a comfortable living doing web design work. In fact, I've been doing some website design work on the side in recent months, and am fully convinced that if I actually dedicated myself 100% to the task, that I could potentially make that much in one year. But for now, I choose to do the Pioneer site and my other sites on the side as more of a hobby, than an actual career.

The Pioneer Drum & Bugle Corps will also be collecting donations at our next camp, March 9th-11th at Cudahy High School. For more information on our donation drive, please visit our home page: www.pioneer-corps.org

I've posted the link and information on Pioneer's website. It's the least that we can do. Hopefully someone, somewhere will have some information that will at least lead to the equipment, and hopefully lead to the arrest of those involved in the theft. And to re-clarify what I posted in the original thread, the theft of instruments really isn't all that uncommon. It happens all the time. Band rooms get knocked off all the time. Music stores report thefts regularly. In a couple minutes on Google I was able to find literally hundreds of reports of stolen band instruments. Usually these were stolen one or two at a time, but there were some reports that would make you shake your head. For example, the theft of 24 oboes and bassoons from a music store in Minneapolis. Or, different accounts of $10,000, $12,000 and $30,000 in instruments stolen in separate band room burglaries. Most of the times these instruments were recovered at pawn shops. In a few cases, they were recovered when the thieves posed as vendors and tried to sell them to music stores. Last, but not least, they've frequently turned up on websites such as E-Bay and Craigslist. The best thing that everyone can do is be vigilant.

The fact of the matter is that things like this do happen and it really doesn't matter where you store your instruments at. This link is from the City of Milwaukee police reports. If you scroll down to "Burglary of businesses", you'll see that musical instruments were stolen from a storage facility between Dec. 13 and Dec. 26th. It proves that storage facilities really aren't all that secure either. And the fact of the matter is that if you can steal it, you can almost always find a market to sell it. The Internet is an amazing marketplace for stolen goods. Recent statistics show that "e-fencing" is now a $37 million dollar per year business (if you want to call it that) that makes approximately 70 cents on the dollar for what the perps steal. Ebay is only one of the marketplaces available. Google the phrase "online auction", and you'll come up with over 24,000,000 hits. If you also spend a couple more minutes on Google, you'll find a lot of sites dedicated to helping people recover stolen instruments. Granted, a lot of the stolen instruments that are being posted are classics/collectors items, it's still overly apparent that there's a definite interest in stealing musical instruments of any type. Anyone who's even partially aware of this and sees a trailer clearly marked "drum corps" sitting in an isolated area might see this as a jackpot. They might have planned things out a bit, or maybe it might have been impulsive. In any event, I will assure you that it took far less than 45 minutes to get the job done. In fact, I'd be willing to be that it probably took less than 10 or 15 minutes max from the time they got the trailer open to the time they were leaving the scene. In my marching days, we could unload all 40 or 50 horn cases off of the truck with two or three people at a show site in a couple minutes. And that was handling them with care. These thieves weren't going to handle them with care. They probably tossed them off the truck as fast as they could and moved on to the next thing. Odds are they probably came in some type of larger van, or possibly even in an old U-Haul or Ryder truck (thieves/scavengers in my neck of the woods love to buy them when U-Haul sells them). If they were there in the middle of the night, it would be very unlikely that anyone would notice them in that short of a period of time. And even if they did, it's a real coin toss if they would have even called it in. I don't put much faith in ever recovering the instruments. The only way I could see that happening is if the thieves encounter resistance when trying to sell the items. In that case they might just dump the equipment somewhere and cut their losses. I recall that happening a while back with another corps in our area. That would be the best case scenario, however I don't envision it being very likely. I'd be more willing to bet that the instruments slowly start to show up online somewhere... it's just a matter of finding where that somewhere is! I wish the folk at KK the best with this situation. Hopefully it resolves itself in a positive manner some how or some way. If anything, it should re-enforce to all other corps the importance of getting proper insurance on all corps' equipment, and the importance of securing the equipment to the best of the corps' ability during the off season.

I just wanted to touch on this issue one more time. While everyone continues to focus on the number "30" as the number of brass players we have right now, that number is not all inclusive and is probably much less than what we'll have on the starting line come June. That's simply the number that we had at this last camp. As I previously stated, there were people missing from almost every section due to school conflicts and so forth. In addition, there are some individuals who due to distance/travel considerations, won't even be joining the corps until May. And if you think that the number 30 is low, trust me... Pioneer has seen a lot lower numbers than that for winter camps in previous seasons. I can recall camps where we struggled to break 20 horns back when I marched from 1993-2000. Not that it's something that we're proud of, but it's something that most lower tier Division I corps have to deal with at some camps. And I guess the last thing is that nothing in the DCI rule books states that you have to have 50+ horns to march Division I drum corps. Granted, it's very unlikely that you'd ever challenge for a DCI title with an undersized horn line. However, there have been several examples of corps being moderately successful with small horn lines. Pioneer in 1999 had only 28 horns, but still was a semifinalist, still got a standing ovation at every show, and got compliments at virtually every show from judges about the quality of our production. Or, perhaps you look at Les Etoiles, who came within a couple points of making top 12 in 1996 with less than 70 members in their corps. So it's clear that horn line/corps size doesn't necessarily dictate that corps can't be moderately successful with a smaller corps. That said, as was previously discussed, we have equipment and busses for 135 members. So, if anyone knows somebody who's still looking for a good place to march this summer, send them the way of Pioneer!

There's no life at Pioneerland in this shot. A little disappointing that you can't zoom in all the way either. But at least the field doesn't look that bad!

While the numbers may be a little low, it is definitely not time to hit the panic button (nor do I foresee a time in the near future where the panic button will be needed!). As with any winter camp, there were people missing from almost every section due to school conflicts, concerts, solo & ensemble, winter guard, etc... Talking to some of the staff, they all seem fairly comfortable with the numbers right now and genuinely excited about the upcoming season. There's a lot of excitement building around the corps and I think it's really going to show this season. That said, there's almost always a spot for someone to march with Pioneer, and I encourage anyone who's still interested in marching this year to at least check out some of the videos that we've posted to our Pioneerland YouTube Channel to find out what Pioneer is really all about.

Well, one corps that hasn't folded is Pioneer! A video from this past weekend's camp has been posted. Visit the Pioneer Website and check out that clip along with all of the other fun stuff that we've been posting to our Pioneerland YouTube Channel.

The article that is being referenced appeared in our News From the Top column on Tuesday, November 7th. Here is a link to the article. As a general rule, the News From the Top column is regularly updated and is the best way to keep up with the latest happenings around Pioneerland. The latest news about Pioneer is posted there on a regular basis, often times before it is released in the form of a press release. The only way to keep up with the Pioneer is to keep checking back! Pioneer Web Site

While I agree that the topic of corps regulating whether their members are allowed to participate in forums such as DCP is somewhat controversial, I don't believe that there should be any controversy in corps preaching safe Internet usage to their members. While a corps cannot regulate whether you have a Myspace page, or similar page, they can at least educate you on what you should/should not be posting. And I'm not just refering to things we typically see, such as corps bashing or judge bashing. I was always taught that such actions reflect poorly upon yourself, and the organization that you're with. In fact, my current employer has a whole section of our "Computer Usage" policy that is dedicated to representing the company in a postive manner in a public forum. It encourages the use of message board, bulletin boards, or news groups for eductational and business purposes. However, it strongly discourages participating in any type of activity that may represent the company in a negative manner. If a corps wants to have a similar policy, so be it. You're choosing to march with that corps just the same as I'm choosing to work where I work. I knew the day that I started what the policies were, and had to sign a contract agreeing to abide to them. Most corps operate the same way with members receiving a corps handbook and signing a contract agreeing to abide by the rules in the handbook. If you don't like that fact that Corps A doesn't allow you to post on the Internet, there's always Corps B, C or D. But back to the real issue... Sexual predators are the real deal. If any of you have watched any of the Dateline specials on "To Catch a Predator", you'll understand what I'm talking about. Granted, many people will discredit the program as being "made for TV". However, law enforcement agencies across the country are conducting operations similar to those shown on the Dateline series leading to hundreds of arrests of predators who often times have driven several hours to meet their potential "victim". It's pretty much a given that they're everywhere on the Internet, trolling for the perfect victim. Out of the 150,000+ registered users here on DCP, I'd be willing to bet that there's at least one or two of those users who had a little different interest in coming here than the rest of us. The fact is that they're everywhere. Most people simply choose to put their "blinders" on and ignore that fact. And most of the time that works, but every once in a while it takes a bit of a reality check to knock those blinders off and make you think twice before posting something that may seem innocent, but yet gives a predator every bit of information that they need to find you. And for those of you who think that corps members aren't vulnerable, think again. First off, most corps have some form of message board. There's plenty of opportunites there to interact with the public. While these boards are typically moderated, it is most definitely possible for a predator to pick out a potential victim off of a message board and begin interacting with them on the board, gain their confidence, and then begin interacting with them off of the board via IM, email, or even phone. And then sometimes members just don't think things 100% through before posting. For example, the very first thread that started on the Pioneer board after tour was one in which members started posting every bit of information about them including email addresses, screen names, home addresses, and phone numbers. Needless to say, I put an end to that very quickly and advised all members of the risks of posting such information online. But the risks don't end there. How many members, especially in corps such as Pioneer that are trying to gain members, have communicated with people via the Internet in an attempt to recruit them to the corps? I know that I often times had people IM me back when I had an AOL account and mentioned Pioneer in my profile. They often times asked questions about auditions, music, and even the summer tour. Have you ever thought that a predator might use a method such as that of an "interested prospective member" to gain the confidence of a young person? Play out this scenario in your head... A young person receives an IM or email from someone who somehow found out that they march with Corps XYZ. The person sending the email/IM wants to march drum corps and is considering doing so with Corps XYZ. The person wants to get a jump start on auditions and begins asking questions about the corps. A series of email and IM conversations ensue. The young corps member, knowing that they could use a few more members in the corps, is eager to recruit someone. Maybe they'll even get a little knocked off of their dues if the person actually joins the corps. The emails/IM's continue and then progess to a series of phone conversations. Most of the talk is about corps related stuff, but every once in a while the conversation drifts off topic. The person on the other end seems genuinely interested in marching with Corps XYZ. Not to mention, they even sound cute! The person asks if there's any way that they can meet with the young person to take a look at last year's book and maybe even learn Corps XYZ's techniques. The person is persistent and persuasive. They must really want to march with Corps XYZ! Eventually the young person agrees to meet with this mystery person.... You can fill in the rest from there... Maybe it is someone that genuinely wants to march... or maybe it's the complete opposite. You would think that common sense would tell most kids not to meet with a stranger that they met online. Unfortunately, common sense doesn't always kick in until it is too late. Ultimately, is it the corps responsibility to "police" what their members are doing online 24/7/365? No... but the least that they can do is reinforce what is already being taught (or should be being taught) to the kids by their parents and their schools. It never hurts to hear a little bit of good advice once in a while, even if you heard it before. Every once in a while you take that advice and sometimes it really pays off.

I think the concept of "closed" rehearsals is hard to enforce. We tried it for a couple years at Pioneer, but the term "closed rehearsals" at that time primarily applied to family and friends showing up at the housing site. They can be an obvious distraction, bringing food and stuff and wanting you to pose for pictures. As far as people showing up at the housing site out of the blue, there's not much that you can do about that. People living in the neighborhoods surrounding the schools are bound to stop by and watch for a while. Not to mention that there's often times things going on at the school (ie football, band, cheerleading, etc...) where people are going to stop and watch. I can only remember a handful of times where where someone like that was enough of a distraction that we had to ask them to leave. In general, if you're going to watch a corps practice its best to keep your distance, keep your mouth shut, and don't bother anyone unless they bother you. Don't pull out every type of recording device possible. Also, don't wear corps apparel head to toe.... you'll stick out like a sore thumb! And it never hurts to take a look at the street names around the school as you're pulling up... if all else fails, you can just pretend to be one of the locals! On a side note... the Reedsburg area school district was hosting a handful of corps including Cadets, Memphis Sound, Yamato, and Vision Elite. I had the opportunity to watch the last two rehearsing on Monday while visiting my parents in Reedsburg. I was impressed with both corps and had a pleasant time. Cadets first arrived in town today, but are supposed to be putting on a show at the high school stadium tonight around 8:00pm. Memphis Sound and Yamato are tentatively doing the same tommorow night.

Thanks for all the good words. The online store is (and has been) in the works. There's a lot of logistical stuff that needs to be taken care of before we launch that. If we're going to do it, we're going to do it the right way. If there's one thing that I get a lot of requests for, that's it... So it's definitely something that we're working on. As far as the new web site design, it offers all of the corps management, caption heads, and volunteer coordinators the ability to update pages on the site on their own without always having to go through me. That will allow me more time to focus on the technology aspect of things. You will see a lot more in that area in the coming months in the way of camp videos and recordings, news updates, and other features of that nature. Your best bet is to keep checking back! You'll never know what you might find!

Also... Be sure to use the I-894 bypass to get to the airport. Too much construction in downtown Milwaukee on I-94 that could set you back depending on lane closures or ramp closures. I would also estimate 1hr 20min is about the best time that you could expect. I generally don't go over 75 at night on I-94 between Madison and Milwaukee because you run into a lot of county sheriff and small towns that like to sit on the interstate and run radar at night when they get bored.

"Ideal" housing has always been hit or miss for finals week as long as I can remember, and that goes back to 1993. Here's a sampling of what I can recall from my years with Pioneer: 1993-Jackson, MS Stayed at a school where school was in session. Woke up to the sound of basketballs bouncing around us. No AC in any of the buildings. Inadequate showers. Over an hour away from the show site. And then there was the infamous question that I'll never forget from one of the students there... "When did they start allowing Negroes to come here?". Talk about culture shock... That's one that I'll never forget. I guess they must have missed the message that it was 1993! (Just as a side note, after a little research online, I found out that they welcomed their first black student ever for the 2001-02 school year!) 1994-Boston, MA Housed at a school in a bad neighborhood. Field flooded with backed up sewage. Ended up practicing on a gravel parking lot with a little bit of asphalt mixed in. Long drive to the show site without traffic... even longer during rush hour traffic! 1995-Buffalo, NY Good housing. I don't know how we managed it, but we were only a couple minutes away from the stadium! 1996-Orlando, FL Beautiful housing at Seminole Community College in Sanford, FL. Plenty of practice fields, plenty of showers, AC everywhere... You couldn't ask for a better place to stay for the week. 1997-Orlando, FL Stayed at the same place as in 1996. Once again, couldn't ask for anything any better. 1998-Orlando, FL Tried to stay at Seminole Community College, but were told at the last minute that it no longer was available for us to use because it was being converted into some type of correctional facility. Ended up staying in a barn at some fairgrounds with a ton of other corps. Eventually we were allowed to move into the Equestrian building, which did have some AC, but we were packed in there as tight as could be. Portable showers were brought in towards the end of the week, but ultimately it was too little too late. (Rumor had it that another corps stayed at SCC, and that's why we got bumped out of there. Anyone want to fess up? BTW... Research online also shows that SCC in no way, shape, or form became a correctional facility!) 1999-Madison, WI We stayed at one of the schools where we regularly held camps. Facilities were Ok and we knew what to expect. The only problem was that it was well over an hour away from the show site. We ended up moving in with another corps mid week closer to Madison who had excellent housing. 2000-Washington, DC The school we stayed at was in a bad neighborhood. People ended up having stuff stolen. We came back one night and thugs were going through our stuff. They tipped over our scaffolding. Then roaches infested the gym. Just not a good place. As you can see, some were good and some were bad. A lot of times when schools or other venues agree to host a corps for a full week, I don't think they really realize what they're getting into. But, in a case such as Madison, most of the schools around Southern Wisconsin are familiar with the program because DCI has been there so many times. I think there are a lot of factors playing into the lack of housing for this year's championships. First, since DCI has been in Madison so many times, there is a greater opportunity for that "bad experience" to have happened in the past that would turn them off to hosting a corps again. None of us want for that to happen, but it's happened to even the best corps from time to time. In addition, the entire State of Wisconsin has been under somewhat of a budget crunch the past couple years. Public officials at all levels have had to find ways to cut costs. It's had a wide variety of effects including the lay off of teachers, custodians, librarians, and even police officers and fire fighters. Point being, many schools have almost completely shut down for the summer to save money. Schools for the most part don't start back up until after Labor Day in Wisconsin. Having to open up the schools almost a month early and get everything running for a corps to stay there could carry quite a cost for some schools. At a time when saving money is key in our state, a lot of band directors and/or athletic directors may have a hard time justifying the possible costs associated with housing a corps. Besides the obvious costs (janitorial, electricity, water, etc...), there's the underlying costs that could creep up. For example, if it's a rainy week up here and we tear up a field or two by marching on them for 5 or 6 days straight, what could it potentially cost them to repair the field? In any event, I'm sure all of those things are factoring into school's decisions as well. Last time DCI was in Madison, there were corps staying all the way in Milwaukee. Ultimately, I'm sure there will be a few doing so again. I know that Pioneer will be staying in Milwaukee and practicing at Pioneerland! At least that's one less corps that will be fighting over available housing sites!

First off, these views are soley mine, and should not be directly attributed to Pioneer... The example you provided is pretty extreme, but I will admit that it does happen from time to time. However, the majority of the injuries that do occur over the course of the summer are more of the "wear and tear" type injuries (sprains, strains, etc...). Serious injuries, such as the one above, are usually prevented through the vigilance of the corps staff and members. This topic of being in shape and proper preparation for the summer tour is covered by most corps quite extensively during the winter/spring camps and during pre tour "every days" or whatever each corps calls them. A lot of information is given to the members about what will be expected of them. Most staff members speak from years of experience and can really recommend some great ways to get into shape for the summer. Some corps even distribute suggested or required work out routines for their members to follow during the winter/spring. Most members make a genuine effort to follow the recommendations of their staff. However, there are always the few that don't. Those are the ones that end up hurting the most once summer hits and it's 90 degrees out with 100% humidity. Those are also the parents that come back to the corps wondering how something could have happened to their son/daughter. However, I would venture to say that most of the information about what will be expected of members and what preparations they should be taking probably didn't make it back to the parents. Or if it did, it wasn't presented in its entirety as it was presented to the members. That brings us to the question of why the topic of injuries isn't on most corps' web sites. In my opinion, part of it has to do with the fact that injuries such as the one you described are few and far between and probably should have/could have been prevented. I also think that there's a general assumption that an average person will probably realize that there's a possibility of some type of injury when participating in any phyical activity. When I joined corps, I knew from the minute I walked into the first rehearsal that my chunky butt was going to have to get in shape if I was going to hang in there come our first drill camp. I did what I had to do to get in shape, and followed the advice of the staff the rest of my marching career. And I'm proud to say that outside of marching the 96 season with shattered big toe against medical advice (non drum corps related-happened playing soccer in gym class toward the end of the school year), I never really had any pain or injuries while marching. But, I also would like to point out that during my eight years marching with Pioneer, I did see a lot of minor injuries among other members. A sprained ankle from stepping in a gopher hole on the practice field. A bruise on the arm from a weapons drop. Second degree burns on the people who thought that they didn't need sunscreen. A person getting stung multiple times by bees during brass sectionals. However, most of those injuries were minor in nature and I would hope that most people entering into an outdoor activity such as drum corps would have the common sense to understand that injuries like that can and will happen. However, I can probably count on one hand the number of major injuries that I saw occur within Pioneer during those 8 years. Our staff emphasized to us that we needed to take care of ourselves, and the majority of the members listened to that advice. Should corps put something on their website about potential injuries? Possibly... but I'd have a hard time working it into our site. I'd be reluctant to have an entire page dedicated to "When Injuries Occur". In my opinion it would make it look like major injuries happen all the time... which they don't. Does that mean that major injuries can't occur? No... but that's also where the fine print on most membership contracts state that the injuries/accidents can occur and contains some type of disclaimer allowing the corps to treat your son/daughter and releasing the corps from any liability in such an event comes into play. It's kind of like when I played little league, they never said anything about me getting hit where the sun doesn't shine by a pitch... not once, but twice. Or when I went to the local YMCA camp, they never said anything about me taking off a good chunk of skin on my arm while rock climbing (which was a "required" activity). Or when I played basketball in school they never said that I could hurt my knee while driving towards the basket. However, most people would assume when signing up for all of those activities that they carry some amount of risk. I guess the best advice that I can give to parents and members is this: Expect to get in shape before the season begins Expect to get in better shape once on tour Expect to feel some pain sometimes (even if you're in the best shape!) Expect to be wore out at the end of the day Expect to do it all over again the next day! But above all, take care of yourself. Listen to your staff's recommendations. Listen to your fellow members as well. If they tell you that you're not looking so hot, listen to them. If someone tells you to take 5 under the nearest tree and drink water, listen to them. And above all, if you are in real pain... say something! As I said, sprains and strains do happen and usually get better with time. However, if they're not getting better... talk to your corps staff. Nobody needs to be a hero. If you hurt yourself more than you already are by marching when you shouldn't be, not only are you hurting yourself, but you're also hurting the whole corps.