When did corps go from being mostly local kids

[littlejewett]

After watching some more of the Cavaliers video set I bought a few years ago, it talked about how the Cavaliers started out as a bunch of kids from the Chicago area who didn't know how to play instruments, didn't know how to march and had to be taught how to march and play instruments. I have heard that most corps were somewhat local back in the VFW championships days.

Just wondering when the kids started going to corps that weren't their "local corps" Any idea how this all started? Was it more that kids just didn't care for their local corps, or more that corps started "recruiting"?

For the Sky Ryders, it started in the early eighties. My brothers started in 76 when it was so local, around the world meant Buhler, KS. I started in 1981 and we had people from California, Texa, Oklahoma and England! By the time I aged out in 88, about five of us were from Hutchinson.

[dc oldtimer]

Mitch

That is not quite right ...when I got off the bus and found my way to Park Ridge in 1975 the few from out of town included Myself, John Huy and Clayton COles and of course TAW' (continental ambassadors) KS, Dave Thomasson (Iron Brigade-MI), and that is about it. Michgan City and Laporte was just part of the semi local landscape as guys had been coming up since the Pages.

IN 76 we had a huge influx with guy s coming from Mississippi, IN (dave owens), Ohio (avery), WI (sadowskis), KS, Iowa (greg orwell) and Canada(bruton) to name a few and more whom i can not recall, 77 brought even more...but in no way did we compare to Madison 74 or 75 as they boasted about members coming from some ungodly number like 48 states represented on their speil sheets that year.

My best friends, Mac and GOOF went to BD that year (1976) while other friends Butterfeild and Greenwalt went to Troopers.

TO be sure I think 76 was a big year for imports nationally with Madison leading the way the previous couple of years.

I hope that is a view from my corner of the world for the original poster.

Who are you! Get a signature!! b**bs

Anyway, I guess what I meant was more outside the midwest. I remember our camps and every Sunday practices being full in 76 and 77. It wasn't until guys started flying in from Texas, Calf., Florida, etc. that I realized that the activity was changing.

Now if you are talking about when 100 percent of the corps was from Logan Square... well, now we are talking late 60's.

[Lancerlady]

The 1980 Garfield Cadets had 27 kids from Mississippi alone (not to mention other imports!).

27 :o Hey watch it there buddy!

:P Yep I knew they recruited heavy down there! :)

Edited November 3, 2005 by Lancerlady

[Geneva]

As has been touched on by several people, I agree that drum corps' move away from a local membership base coincided with the formation of DCI and accelerated throughout the 70's. This coincided with the disintegration of regional circuits and the folding of many smaller corps which couldn't keep up with the financial stresses of touring and expanded instrumentation and costuming costs. At the same time the type of kid in drum corps was changing to those with more serious interests in the performing arts and the focus of these organizations was changing from that of being a local civic organization to being a performance vehicle for kids with pre-existing performing arts backgrounds willing to travel great distances to find the certain group which they were interested in. The corps were no longer a training ground for novices as they once had been.

My competitive years were from 1966-74. In the Appleknockers the vast majority of members came from within a half hour's drive. There were rare members who traveled 40-100 miles. Flying?...Nope. By 1974 in the Purple Lancers, members were starting to leave their local corps and the radius had expanded to an hour or two's drive although I still don't recall members traveling from other parts of the country.

Edited November 3, 2005 by Geneva

[elphaba01]

As has been touched on by several people, I agree that drum corps' move away from a local membership base coincided with the formation of DCI and accelerated throughout the 70's. This coincided with the disintegration of regional circuits and the folding of many smaller corps which couldn't keep up with the financial stresses of touring and expanded instrumentation and costuming costs. At the same time the type of kid in drum corps was changing to those with more serious interests in the performing arts and the focus of these organizations was changing from that of being a local civic organization to being a performance vehicle for kids with pre-existing performing arts backgrounds willing to travel great distances to find the certain group which they were interested in. The corps were no longer a training ground for novices as they once had been.

My competitive years were from 1966-74. In the Appleknockers the vast majority of members came from within a half hour's drive. There were rare members who traveled 40-100 miles. Flying?...Nope. By 1974 in the Purple Lancers, members were starting to leave their local corps and the radius had expanded to an hour or two's drive although I still don't recall members traveling from other parts of the country.

"Imports":

Having marched junior corps in the late 1950s through the late 1960s an "Import" was practically unheard of, unless you considered someone from out of your Parish (Or Precinct) or from the town next door as an "Import".

The influx of "Out of Towners" (For our area at any rate) may have begun around 1966, when several people from Milford CT and Stratford CT signed up.

Elphaba

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