This One Year, After Band Camp ...

I fell in love with this activity during this one time, at band camp! Well, drum major camp. OK, well, after camp. It was at camp that I saw something about this drum corps show near my home (link), and went. I was thoroughly captivated.

By the small and energetic Emerald Knights. By the color of the San Jose Raiders, with that red rose on the uniform (this is waaaay back, when there were just a drum and bugle corps, not a winter gurad!). By the Colts, who didn’t forget the audience that night (and who in the audience would ever forget Harpo!)

And the Madison Scouts, who modeled precision and taught me in a brief pre-show clinic how to teach others to march and gave me a great taste of Strawberry Soup! Then there was the Phantom Regiment, who re-introduced me to my mother’s passion of the classics, with Spartacus (to be reprised in 2008!).

Even in my little high school band, I was inspired to make a difference, to apply the lessons, to learn how to push myself.

In college I wasn’t in band, but I was lucky – the state championships were held at none other than the stadium right on campus at the University of Texas at Austin. And so I still learned.

In graduate school, I took a class on starting a business. I broke a rule. My business was a non-profit, a drum and bugle corps. I studied all the successes and failures, and then made a few more of my own, luckily on paper.

Then in Raleigh, North Carolina, a hand scrawled flyer got in my hands, letting me know about a few other people in Charlotte, who shared the dream of starting a drum corps. I was lucky that they let me into their club, and I was able to then see the paper dream become a reality, an organization you may know as Carolina Crown. I was lucky enough to serve as president of the board as the group matured, and fortunate that my tenure didn’t drive them into the ground! From that summer in 1981 to now – with the exception of 2006 – drum corps has been a part of my summer. Now, it is high school band again.

Passion is a big circle.


Thanks for sharing the ride this year! And Happy New Year to you!