exactly 46 years ago today.

[Florida Sun]

chuck they got a 2 point penalty in DCA shows to. they were illegal. shellmer just didn't care. he was making a point. i thought he was wrong.

And today we have tons of stuff ,all over the field ,Sun was a trend setter way before any others .

[ironlips]

Actually, "bells" were legal for drum corps at least since the '40s, but they had to be played upright, with one mallet, as glockenspeils. You can hear them on Madison Scouts and Scout House recordings.

By the '60s they were considered arcane and only parade and school corps seemed to be using them.

All Shellmer did was turn them horizontally, like orchestra bells, and play them with the requisite two hand technique. And then all hell broke loose.

The Legion and VFW both had some strange regulations in place which were constantly being challenged: valves (locked or free moving), slides, rotaries, percentage of veterans, haircuts, size of lettering on bass drums, shoelaces...you name it, they restricted it.

I do recall the Sunrisers being challenged for either the vet percentage or number of members under 21 at one point. (In '66 we could have competed in the Jr. Legion Nationals had we held out about 15 members.)

[ajlisko]

>>I do recall the Sunrisers being challenged for either the vet percentage or number of members under 21 at one point. (In '66 we could have competed in the Jr. Legion Nationals had we held out about 15 members.)<<

HAHA ... without those 15 guys, the PAL probably had an older average age than Sun in 66 ...

[Florida Sun]

i joined Sunrisers in 63 most of the membership i recall at my frist rehersal .was from the Queensmen ,i had also marched Queensmen and felt right at home .At that time in life i was 20yrs old and i thought most of the corps was older than i .But i do recall getting challenged on how many legion members belonged to the corps .That was a few years later .