Northern Thunder

I sat next to Tom Root 50 years ago at the Minnesota All-State Band Camp. He played tuba, and was fresh out of the University of Minnesota as a student clinician. I was a trombone player, a few years younger than Tom. You can always appreciate the good memories you had when you enjoyed drum corps some years back.

John Ratzenberger (Cliff Clavin from Cheers) IS in the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-bf6lvxUQ8 And the corps he marched with were CT Royal Lancers and St. Ann's Loyalairs.

And then there were the 1977 Bengal Lancers...... they won the DCI Class 'A' Championship on August 17. On August 27, at the UOEC Championship, they were found to have marched overage members during the year. The corps director immediately pulled them out of the Garden State Championship, which was held the very next day. DCI never did anything to punish them, despite the fact they won the DCI title. I guess all their attention was on the Bridgemen that year.

Michael Trump was a member back in 1990. https://www.readingeagle.com/news/article/end-of-summer-scuba-diving-trip-to-niagara-ends-in-tragedy-for-family-with-reading-ties

bluecoats88 is correct. Troopers also beat Madison during the 2007, 2008 & 2009 seasons.

Blakeslee is a FANTASTIC drum corps venue! The very last time I ever spoke to Gail Royer, was in the end zone at Blakeslee on July 5, 1992. Had a great talk with him in his final year with SCV. Sadly, just 11 months later, he passed away. He told me he had no idea what he was going to do after he left the corps.

Twice we had some extremely dangerous weather conditions get in the way at TCF. The first one (2010) was serious enough to keep a number of people completely away from the show in later years.

I think DCI wants an indoor facility. The sound in the great outdoors was GREAT at TCF Bank, but it seems the days of major outdoor drum corps shows are gone.

DCI Minnesota may move into US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis in the future.

And their fine 1973 hornline (one of the best in DCI) had 23 females, out of 6o total.

They sure did, Fran! When they tore off the line playing Miserlou, they had the crowd begging for more. Along with Blue Rock, Del was the most impressive corps at that show.

Is that you, George??

Hi Mike! I used to do an annual active North American junior corps census for Drum Corps World....probably did them for 20 years. The index of corps that appears in the Drum Corps World book A History of Drum & Bugle Corps, was done by me. It turns out that with more digital sources available today there were MANY more active junior corps than were ever published. I have recently found corps that literally nobody ever heard of, that did parades, exhibitions, etc. I meticulously researched the corps that were performing. In that final pre-DCI season of 1971, the numbers would have been close to 1,000 in the U.S. and Canada.

Yes...definitely 1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7GttwLodlE

Plans for next year?