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I think, Mike that many Roman Catholic Church sponsored corps out grew their parishes.

As I said in another thread, we were asked to leave St. Joseph because too many of the corps members were from outside of the neighborhood.

I may have misspoke in that earlier post about why "St. Rita's Brassmen" became simply "The Brassmen" after '72 - my age out year. I have since heard that Father Schiraldi was sent to another parish and the new Monsignor was not - let us say - 'as dedicated' to drum corps.

The corps I remember from the Tri State Area of New York City: (and I'm sure there were more)

St. Rocco's

St. Catherine's os Sienna Queensmen

Our Lady of Loretta

Our Lady Of Perpetual Health Ridgemen

Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights

The OLC Ramblers

St. Lucy's Cadets

St. Joseph's of Batavia

Saint Kevin's Emerald Knights.

Puppet

I thought St Kevin's was from the Boston area????

I think there were all sorts of reasons why drum corps were abandoned by the church groups...a lot of them for financial reasons I would think. You also had the huge change in society in the late 60's where a lot of the older bastions of respect (the hated 'Establishment') were no longer respected as they had been a few years earlier, esp in the urban areas. Parents and kids were not looking to the church, PAL, etc...as place to "be", so to speak.

St Martin's in Newark was folded by their moderator after having a huge fight with, I think, St Andrew's...right on the field at retreat of the Garden State Circuit champs in 69. Or was it with the Riversiders...the mind forgets these days! :)

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Resulting from an inquiry I put on on DCP a couple weeks ago, there are three Fanfare columns on DCI.org scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday on church-sponsored corps.

Due to some major things that were being released today and required the full attention of the web content guy, the articles will run Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

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Many of us in St. Joe's from BATAVIA actually lived in ROCHESTER. Then we picked a number of guys from Niagara County areas like Sanborn, etc.

At the time we thought we just had a church sponsored name.

Donny

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From Michael Boo

"I thought St Kevin's was from the Boston area????"

You know, you could be right.

But they, like the short lived Queensmen were such a huge force in the early sixties, it was like they from our back yard - 'Course my memory is suffering from a severe case of C.R.A.F.T.!

Puppet

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The Precious Blood Cardinals of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada were active from the 1970 season through to the 1978 season. I believe the parish pulled their sponsorship in the spring of 1979. I don't remember if they actually fielded a corps that year, but the director, Jim Towey, managed to start up a self sponsored group at some point.

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I thought St Kevin's was from the Boston area????

I think there were all sorts of reasons why drum corps were abandoned by the church groups...a lot of them for financial reasons I would think. You also had the huge change in society in the late 60's where a lot of the older bastions of respect (the hated 'Establishment') were no longer respected as they had been a few years earlier, esp in the urban areas. Parents and kids were not looking to the church, PAL, etc...as place to "be", so to speak.

St Martin's in Newark was folded by their moderator after having a huge fight with, I think, St Andrew's...right on the field at retreat of the Garden State Circuit champs in 69. Or was it with the Riversiders...the mind forgets these days! :)

You are right Mike it was St. Martins and the Bridgemen while we were at our buses celebrating our victory St. Martins marched right into us and started a big brawl

Edited by lp1955
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The Precious Blood Cardinals of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada were active from the 1970 season through to the 1978 season. I believe the parish pulled their sponsorship in the spring of 1979. I don't remember if they actually fielded a corps that year, but the director, Jim Towey, managed to start up a self sponsored group at some point.

They were just known as the Cardinals

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At Greece Cadets the kids called them "Bucket of Blood" Cardinals...I think my brother Tom came up with that one.

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I think they played music from 'Captain Blood' off the line one year. Maybe that's where the name came from?

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The corps I remember from the Tri State Area of New York City: (and I'm sure there were more)

St. Rocco's

St. Catherine's of Sienna Queensmen

Our Lady of Loretta

Our Lady Of Perpetual Health Ridgemen

Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights

The OLC Ramblers

St. Lucy's Cadets

St. Joseph's of Batavia

Saint Kevin's Emerald Knights.

Puppet

These are just the competing 'm&m' field corps that Puppet has named. At one point, almost every parish in the Brooklyn Diocese (consisting of Brooklyn and Queens) had a drum corps of some sort, be it fife and drum, drum and bugle, bell and drum or a combination of fife, drum, bugle and also bells. This is the type of corps I started in, and I never marched a junior m&m corps.

Some names for you, in no particular order:

St. Catherine of Sienna 'Marianettes,' (field corps, & 'sister corps' to the Queensmen)

St. Camillus, Rockaway Beach

St. Joseph's Brigade, Astoria

Our Lady of Fatima 'Blue Lancers,' Jackson Heights

St. Clare's 'Golden Emeralds,' Rosedale

St. Robert's 'Robertones,' Bayside

Our Lady of the Snows 'Stormy Knights,' Floral Park (later went m&m)

St. Anselm's Fife and Drum, Bay Ridge

Most Precious Blood 'Crusaders,' Bensonhurst

SS. Joachim and Anne, Queens Village

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Fife and Drum Corps, Bay Ridge ('sister corps' to the Ridgemen)

St. Rita's, Long Island City

St. Barbara's, Brooklyn

St Matthias 'Blue Max,' Ridgewood (later went m&m)

Miraculous Medal 'Orbits,' Ridgewood/Maspeth (later went m&m)

St. Aloysius, Ridgewood

St. Fidelis 'Majestic Knights,' College Point

St. Pascal's, Jamaica

Our Lady of Angels 'Blue Angels,' Brooklyn

St. Adalbert's, Maspeth

In the 1960's and early 70's, almost all of these corps were all active at the same time. These were mostly neighborhood parade and standstill corps. They drew most members from the parish school, and some grew to be quite large and went into field competition. Quite a few had multiple groups, with beginners and 'feeder' corps in their organizations. Also, many were taught by big names (like Tommy Martin, Bobby Thompson, George Rodriguez, Ernie Fesler, Cal Meyers), and were the training grounds for many of us who went on to big-name junior or senior corps. Many of their former members are still marching in seniors and alumni corps today.

By the way, only two of these remain today: St. Joseph's and St. Clare's, and I teach drum to both of them. Sadly, the Church-sponsored corps are nearly extinct in the NY area. Most of it has to do with economics, and changing attitudes of parish and school staff.

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