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1959 Holy Name/Garfield Cadets Drum Major


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I just read an old article about the 1958-59 drum major, George Petrencak, being shot and killed by Asst. Director John McAuliffe (later to become director of Hawthone Muchachos after his release from prison).

Does anyone know the circumstances surrounding this event?

Edited by falcon
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Can't recall if in fact the B&A was involved with the death the OP is interested in.

The Cadets alums a couple of years back put together an in depth history chronology of their Corps from start up to the present. It is linked here on one of the pages of DCP as a matter of act. Its quite detailed and a quite impressive undertaking and they did a great job those Alums, imo. In the chronology, they touch upon the 1959 DM's death but I seem to recall that the report had the DM dying when a gun accidentally went off or some such and shot dead the DM. Now, maybe this was another episode, I'm not sure. Dennis Delucia alludes in this recent update from last month to the fact that MacAullife, AKA " The boss ", committed some sort of murder or manslaughter at the very least and went to jail for killing the Holy Name Cadets DM. Thats new info for many of us like myself not connected to the NY- NJ Drum Corps scene back then and it sure is a shocking revelation to learn of it, imo.

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I certainly had never seen anything about that in all the years I've been researching the activity.

Actually, I never heard the story either until I pulled up the Dennis DeLucia explanation of the DCI disqualification of the 1975 Hawthorne Muchachos. He gave a very detailed history and description of the Cadets that included the mention of the shooting. I Googled the name and found a newspaper article from the Red Bank Register--March 3, 1960, page 3 (here's the link):

http://209.212.22.88/DATA/RBR/1960-1969/1960/1960.03.02.pdf

I marched with the Cabs and had close ties with people from the Muchachos, and I had never heard the story, so that's

why it peaked my curiosity.

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I Googled the name and found a newspaper article from the Red Bank Register--March 3, 1960, page 3 (here's the link):

http://209.212.22.88/DATA/RBR/1960-1969/1960/1960.03.02.pdf

Nice find, Falcon.

Yikes.

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Gentlemen, this thread brings back far too many sad memories for many of us who knew and loved George and are still around. George was a great person, a great leader and a great Cadet. No one could have imagined this happening. As to what actually happened, only George and Mac know the answer to that question, and neither can say..............

I STRONGLY encourage the closing of this thread as any further discussions are pointless and will never provide any healing responses to those of us that still carry the loss of this fellow Cadet in our hearts.

Thank You............

...."for Holy Name Shall Always Be".

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