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All Male Corps


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I can't recall which exact corps it was, but in the '50s a corps from California had all boys in the hornline and all girls in the drumline.

"California Dreamin'"...

The old California Senorita's all girls corps which was a pretty "Dominant" unit back in the early 1960's actually had a male timbale player in the form of Don Porter junior. I have a picture of them in an old issue of Drum Corps World.

Talk about a "Lucky Guy".....

Elphaba

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I always wondered how much better those all-male hornlines may have been, had they admitted females.

Argonne Rebels, who dominated the early '70s horn caption, had a then unheard of 18 girls in their '71 hornline (1st in brass at VFW Nationals) and an even more unheard of 23 in their '73 hornline (2nd in total brass at DCI).

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These days we have 2, Cavaliers & Madison. But Garfield was all Male, as were Blessed Sacrament, Belleville Black Knights, Kilties, Racine Scouts, Toronto Optimists, Scout House, and more whom I'm sure you'll remind of. So...When & Why did virtually all former all male Drum Corps become Coed?

The reason I heard that everyone changed, was that many corps were started or operated under Boy Scout, VFW, or DeMolay organizations, and they were prohibited from having females in the group (maybe exceptions for guard). When those sponsorships ended, not only did the restrictions disappear, but so did the built-in recruitment from those organizations.

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The Cavaliers did begin as a Boy Scout corps back around 1948.

In 1956 the Norwood Park Imperials, at that time they were a top 10 corps, had a girl snare drummer. When I joined the Braintree Warriors in 1955, we came in 5th in the VFW Finals, we had a very good drumline and our best snare drummer was Marilyn Steele. It was unusual for a corps to have girl musicians, but it wasn't illegal, and it did happen, and they more than held up with the best of the boys.

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I always wondered how much better those all-male hornlines may have been, had they admitted females.

Argonne Rebels, who dominated the early '70s horn caption, had a then unheard of 18 girls in their '71 hornline (1st in brass at VFW Nationals) and an even more unheard of 23 in their '73 hornline (2nd in total brass at DCI).

They had Sandra Opie as well, which didn't hurt.

Wasn't their guard all-male? It sure looks that way on the videos.

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Add General Putnam's Men in there too, who were originally an all male corps.

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De La Salle Oaklands were originally all-male and were part of Toronto's De La Salle College.

Edited by byline
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Garfield added girls for the 69 season. When the Little Falls Cadets corps folded, the guard as a group came over to Garfield to become the first females in the corps.

And what a wonderful thing that was for some of us on the East Coast! Added a whole new dimension to the corps! Just have to add though, (with the mention of Ms. Opie) that Garfield had one of the best ever Mellophone players I've ever heard - she would be Barbara Maroney!

Edited by Puppet
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There were tons of all-male corps, but you would never know it by their unit name, unlike the all-girl corps, who nearly all used "All-Girl" or had the word "Girls" in the corps name.

I've run across quite a number of corps that I knew as co-ed, who were all-male in earlier forms.

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