Euphscott

Vigilantes songs are: Minnie, The Moocher - Cab Calloway and Irving Mills Spiderman Theme - Paul Francis Webster and Robert Harris Unforgettable - Irving Gordon Can't Buy Me Love - John Lennon and Paul McCartney

With nearly all our i's dotted and t's crossed, Vigilantes are happy to announce our 2010 repertoire for our production entitled "Vigilante Justice." Our show is is in four parts and will have some tasty beats, tasty notes, and a storyline to keep the audience involved with our crowd pleasing show. The songs used in the show are as follows: Minnie, The Moocher - Cab Calloway and Irving Mills Spiderman Theme - Paul Francis Webster and Robert Harris Unforgettable - Irving Gordon Can't Buy Me Love - John Lennon and Paul McCartney

We remain a DCA-Midwest corps, although we will be traveling to Houston for a DCA-South competition. We had a terrific weekend camp and capped the brass at 30 for this year. That is more than double what we fielded last summer, so we expect bigger things (and we are working on the better!) this season. Drill starts April 10th, we are ready to get the show on the field!

Vigilantes will hold camp this weekend in Krum, TX. The brass numbers will be settled so drill can be written this weekend. So, if you are on the fence or know anyone wanting to march in the north Texas area (we do have Austin, San Antonio, Oklahoma, and Arkansas members - so we don't accept only north Texans!), this is the weekend to move or you better learn to drum or spin! :) The show is coming along nicely and all sections look to be stronger and larger than last season. Come check us out and be a part of the fun!

Vigilantes show title has changed. It is now "Vigilante Justice" Tunes will be announced once rights are secured. We are getting close!

Thanks for the update Tom. I was not aware - I wish you all the best. Good luck in the rehab and lifestyle changes!

Great to see you guys moving along...looking forward to seeing you in MN!

Knowing a few musicians in the group, I can safely expect the brass playing that will be on display may be as good as many of the current DCI corps going. They were the best in the activity in their time and many of those musicians have gone on to do Blast or other professional playing activities. One of the things I have discovered being involved in DCA is that while the body may not always move like the old days, more mature players can learn much quicker and in many cases are simply better performers due to the experience of many years of playing. I have no doubt the Star Alumni Group is going to cause jaws to drop and be talked about for some time to come!

Congratulations on a good head start. Enjoy the weather and the "home field" advantage you have living in Flroida!

I think the reference to UNT is that their marching percussion program is pretty special. Go check out PASIC some time (and this is from a Brass guy!). No - Phantom Regiment has not switched to Jupiter/Mapex for percussion equipment. They are still playing on Dynasty. They did switch to Jupiter Brass however.

All the shows I attend have ushers enforcing rules. It will interesting how they adjust to pre-show presentations.

Thanks Rich - should be a big weekend with a little more show revealed to membership and more new music!

Good call back - but I can assure you none of the selections Spirit used will be in our show (at least as currently constructed!) and probably won't feel very similar at all. But that was a fun show...

The Vigilantes will hold their next camp February 13 from 9 AM - 6 PM at Krum High School. The focus of the camp will be on settling the percussion section. At this camp our caption head Paul Rennick will instruct the entire day along with his staff. This is an incredible opportunity to work with an amazing instructor and try out the corps. Our brass section has been coming along nicely in preparation for the coming season. Our show is entitled "Something Borrowed..Something Blues." We are expecting even more music from our arranger this camp and should really start to get a feel for how our show will cook this summer. It is an exciting repertoire - and if you think toes were tapping last summer... Color guard will continue to work on basics. It will not be a full crowd as many of our returning members are still performing in winterguards, but staff will work on fundamentals with those that are present. Camp fee is $50. Bring your own sticks or mouthpiece and a willingness to work. Lunch will be on your own (although with our friendly crew, no one will be allowed to go it alone!). If you have any questions or want to know more about the corps, visit our website at www.vigilantescorps.org

This example does not exactly meet your criteria - but the Kilties returned after some time off - albeit the original corps was a junior corps and the current version is now an all age corps.

I believe you are correct... And thanks for the correction all on the DKR turf - I had not heard of the switch...that might be good for state competitions (football, bands, etc...) again...

DKR is natural grass surface now - you won't get a drum corps show there. Cotton Bowl is still a toilet in spite of renovations. And HOT!!! (and I live 20 minutes away and would love a big reginoal that close)

It's a Bubble not a Bugle

Isn't that a tenant of Festivus?

He's helping to anchor a nice contra sound - not sure I want to slap too much sense into him! :)

Vigilantes held another successful camp this past Saturday. Color Guard and Percussion were sparse due to local conflicts, but both sections are looking solid with the bodies we know that will be with us. The most encourgaing part of the weekend was the roughly 30 hornline members in attendance. For those that keep score that is more than double our hornline size from last year. Recruiting is going well and a number of paying members were not in attendance, so we expect the line to continue to grow. The first 45 seconds of the opener was handed out and worked. It was and will be a fun way to kick off our 2010 production. The corps has moved to its new rehearsal facilities. A local band group has graciously adopted us in a swap of needs. The Krum high school band program is preparing to begin a new marching band program. They have some tremendous facilities that they can offer us, in return our staff can mentor the band program and give them a headstart in rolling out their program. The school has a strong history of concert band success at local and national competitions, so they will provide us some new quality musicians as well. It is a good sharing relationship. So, there are good things coming from Texas. We are excited about the progress and potential for 2010.

Dallas - you can see two Paul Rennick drumlines on the field! Vigilantes (DCA) will perform in Dallas.

Vigilantes are a hinterlands corps and we've experienced a nice jolt of interest this offseason as well. Several factors have influenced our good fortune. We have new staff that is working hard to recruit, we are retaining last year's membership at a good level, and we've developed some new community ties that should impact our recruiting. It is safe to say though that the large bill of marching DCI did impact us last year and will possibly do so again this coming year. We had a handful of DCI age kids that did not want to commit the time or money to do the full DCI tour. So, we were and are a good alternative. And it is definitely a sales point we are not afraid to use!

This is off topic and a week too late - but a great story of a vet that just keeps on playing. I love the last line of the article - it reminds me a lot of the DCA legends that don't ever quit! This was found on CNN's website: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/05/vif2.pilo...mpet/index.html Bountiful, Utah (CNN) -- It was two weeks after D-Day, a few miles from the bloody shores of Omaha Beach. An airstrip had been carved out of the Normandy countryside, costing the lives of 28 Army engineers at the hands of German snipers. A lone sniper still remained in the nighttime distance. Despite the risk, Capt. Jack Tueller felt compelled to play his trumpet. That afternoon, his P-47 fighter group had caught up with a retreating German Panzer division. As the U.S. Thunderbolts descended on their targets, they saw French women and children on top of the tanks. After an initial fly-by, the order was given to attack anyway. "We were told those human shields were expendable," Tueller said. Back at the airstrip, Tueller took out his trumpet. He'd used it on many a starlit night to entertain the men of the 508th Squadron 404th Fighter Group. "I was told, 'Captain, don't play tonight; your trumpet makes the most glorious sound,' but I was stressed," he said. He was so troubled that he was willing to take a chance the sniper wouldn't fire. "I thought to myself, that German sniper is as lonely and scared as I am. How can I stop him from firing? So I played that German's love song, 'Lilly Marlene,' made famous in the late '30s by Marlene Dietrich, the famous German actress. And I wailed that trumpet over those apple orchards of Normandy, and he didn't fire." The next morning, the military police came up to Tueller and told him they had a German prisoner on the beach who kept asking, "Who played that trumpet last night?" "I grabbed my trumpet and went down to the beach. There was a 19-year-old German, scared and lonesome. He was dressed like a French peasant to cloak his role as a sniper. And, crying, he said, 'I couldn't fire because I thought of my fiancé. I thought of my mother and father,' and he says, 'My role is finished.' "He stuck out his hand, and I shook the hand of the enemy," Tueller said. "[but] he was no enemy, because music had soothed the savage beast." "Boy, you have strong lips" Tueller had learned to play the trumpet as a child growing up in Wyoming. His mother, a nurse, died at 29, and his father, a bartender and alcoholic, left the next day -- leaving Jack and his brother, Bob, orphans. They left their home in Superior to live with an aunt in nearby Evanston. She gave Jack his first trumpet, and he quickly discovered he had a musical ear. "In 1939, I was playing in Yellowstone Park in a dance band of 22 musicians at Lake Hotel. The famous trumpet player Louis Armstrong came up to the band during intermission and said, 'You sound pretty good for white cats,' " Tueller recalled. He asked Armstrong what advice he would give a young trumpet player. "He said, 'Always play the melody, man. Look at them, see their age group, play their love songs, and you'll carry all the money to the bank.' " Tueller enrolled at Brigham Young University, where he met his future wife and fellow trumpeter, Marjorie. "This beautiful brown-haired gal with luscious lips said, 'Did you play the trumpet solo at the freshman assembly?' And I said, 'Yes, ma'am, I did.' She said, 'Boy, you have strong lips.' Being a sophomore, I said, 'Would you like to try me?' She nodded, and I went over and kissed her." In 1941, as war clouds gathered, Jack enlisted in the Army and was sent to fighter school because he was an "individualist," he said. "I wanted to fly it, fire it, navigate it, shoot the guns." He once flew his plane through a dirigible hangar at Moffitt Field in Sunnyvale, California. The commandant was fuming mad. "He stood me in a brace, then he kind of smiled and says, 'We don't want to quell spirit like that ... but don't do it again!'" When D-Day arrived on June 6, 1944, Tueller was in the air, flying five missions. "I witnessed the invasion from a ringside seat. We saw 2 million men, 10,000 ships. And we just shot at everything," he said. "We tried to help those men trying to get off the landing craft at high tide, where a lot of them were drowned. "I remember feeling pride and sadness as I saw the bodies of 4,000 killed in two hours." Tueller credits common sense and his first flight instructor, a crop duster, with his survival that day -- and the rest of the war. "I learned to love low-level flying. I never came off enemy targets high. I'd lay it down a row of trees 400 knots, a foot off the ground, so all the flak would go over my head. They'd wonder where I'd gone." Trumpet in the cockpit Tueller managed to fly 140 missions without taking a single bullet hole to his airplane -- the name of his infant daughter, Rosanne, painted on the side. "Everyone wanted to fly it; they thought it let a charmed life." And on each mission, Tueller carried his trumpet in the cockpit. "I took it in a little canvas bag attached to my parachute. I figured if I ever got shot down, it would go with me, and if I survived and got put into a prisoner of war camp, I could get an extra bar of soap from the guard." His tour of duty ended just before his fighter group left for Belgium and the Battle of the Bulge. Three months later, his plane was shot down and destroyed. The pilot was killed. Tueller went on to fight in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and served in the Pentagon during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War. He retired in 1966 as a colonel, having earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, almost two dozen air medals and two Legions of Merit, the nation's highest peacetime award. Now 89, Tueller takes care of Marjorie, his wife of 68 years, who has Alzheimer's disease. As Veterans Day approaches, he has a word of advice to veterans: "When you become a veteran, it's my opinion that you should do everything to make people realize the wonderful life that you really have." He still has his trumpet of 70 years and still performs at schools, family get-togethers and church functions. He has a stereo system installed in the back of his family van, where he inserts a CD of big band music and begins playing the melodies of a bygone era. "I was an unruly child," he said. "Music tamed me. ... My ambition as the last action on my part as a veteran is to hit high C and fall right into the grave. What a way to go!"

Good luck to our fellow Texans!