1964
Music
Battle Hymn
El Capitan
Little Red Wing
Wagon Wheels
Ghost Riders in the Sky
Promised Land
Awards & Recognitions
1st “Drums Along the Rockies” Champions
Appear at NY Worlds Fair
Meet actor Jimmy Stewart at Fort Laramie at the filming of “Cheyenne Autumn”
Corps Members
Drum Major: Pete Emmons
Guard Captains: Janet Ferrell, Mary Schneider
Virginia Bush, Charlene Butscher, Lindy Butscher, Michelle Charbonneau, Susan Cunningham, Diana Davis, Janet Ferrell, Dee Francescato, Cathy Jones, Laurel Jones, Florence Lau, Rhonda Murray, Jeannette Putnam, Barbara Rinker, Mary Schneider, Mary Shea, Eddie Bostwick, Jody Murray, Johnny Patterson, Ruth Ann Smith, Bill Bailey, Mark Peden, Fred Sanford, Jim McDaniel, Carolyn McMillan, Pam Miller, Jim Booth, Paul Boyer, Vickie Carlen, Terry Carr, Ron Kalkofen, Barry Miller, John Shea, James Wade, John Larramendy, John Belz, Mary Broadbent, Lind Carlen, Vern White, Pat Polichio, Dick DePaemelere, Pete Banta, Bob Campos, Virginia Nunez, Tom Dodson, Lloyd Banta, Bill Garner, Dick Hinerman, Ken Davis, Ray Maxon, Walt Heath, Blaine Gillingham, Jim Herdt, Greg Carr, Allen Goodrich, Ted Booth, Don Carr, Dean Jackman, Nick Krause, Gary Priess, Karl Swenson, Tom Anderson, Bernice Hollandsworth, Jack McClellan
Cadet Corps Members
Dennis Dusel, Robert Kalkofen, Ronnie Mokler, Bruce Bandy, Randy Devendorf, Kenny Meinzer, Gary Shockey, Dan Wilson, Greg Cunningham, Vicki DePaolo, Lucille Gerdom, Marvelynn Hehnke, Charles Moser, Marsha Robertson, Brett Carr, Jake Johnson, Warren Schaeffer, Russell Garner, Gary Meinzer, James Lynch, Randy Murray, Jimmy Gray, Michael Putnam, Tom Essex, Bill Fyock, Steve Kildow, Rick Lemke, Carl Nordman, David Ramsey, Larry Adkisson, Kandra Carr, Melanie Jackman, Jim McIntyre, Carolyn Bailey, Rosanna Lau, Linda Lynch, Elizabeth Washenfelder, Cathy Anderson, Marilyn Bailey, Barbara Baker, Edithe Booth, Donna Davis, Cheryl Ellis, Sharon Garrison, Becky Halery, Glenna Howell, Marlene Johnson, Vickie Jones, Donna Knobel, Sandy Maxon, Linda Mokler, Teresa O’Neil, Billi Jo Santisteven, Eileen White, Nancy Severson, Evets Weeks, Jo Ellen Williams
A Personal Remembrance
byJames McDaniel
It was maybe 1960 or so. The place was Racine, WS. It was Racine’s annual beerfest and round of drum corps contests. At the time it was a very significant event that drew corps from both the Midwest and the East (the West Coast had yet to be discovered in Drum Corps terms). The Troopers were still a wonderment to most corps fans. We were learning the ropes and having some amount of success in the process.
One of our ‘learning experiences’ occurred in the dark, literally. The Troopers were housed with the very mighty Boston Crusaders. Boston was having some good years at the time. They had the reputation of being tough on and off the field – ‘The Hyde Park Boys.’ The Troopers, on the other hand, were a rarity at the time with a mixed gender horn line and drum line, but still being able to compete with the traditional all male lines.
Apparently this was both an embarrassment and a mystery to the Hyde Park Boys. It was illustrated after the lights in the gym we were sharing went out. There were some words of less than hospitable content and tone coming from the Boston side of the gym. The replies from the Trooper side were necessarily restrained. We lacked the size and temperament to directly confront the reputation, likely true, that Boston traveled with.
It was a moment of grievously ill advised pique that generated a cute reply form one of the Troopers to the cat calls that began an exchange that remained a part of the Trooper lore for years to come. One of the Boston ‘gentlemen’ shuffled around in the dark. One of his friends whispered as to what he was trying to find. When he realized what his friend was doing, we were given a phrase whose mere mention brought a knowing laughter as we bedded down in gyms across the nation: ‘Artie, don’t tro dat chew.’ Artie apparently armed himself with a uniform white buck. The kind with a pink sole thick enough to crush a Volkswagen Beetle (they were really originals back then). It would have not marred the finish of the shoe, but would have left its victim with few distinguishing features. The white of the buck might have shown some signs of wear; however, it was in the lore of the Boston Crusaders at the time, that their uniform shoes were likely white at one time, but it was a sign of their massive demeanor that you would have to look closely to see any remaining remnants of white as they took the field of competition, be that on the field or in the parking lot afterwards.
Artie was cajoled repeatedly, ‘Artie, don’t tro dat chew.’ Artie was restrained but for just a few minutes. The launch was silent, its flight through the dark was far more profound. As it sliced the damp Wisconsin night air it had an uneven rhythm with a base tone that gave it even more dread than what it had already earned. The Troopers froze not knowing who was to become the target. Once Artie’s shoe impacted the rolled up wooden bleaches behind us with a concussion that was shattering, both as it reverberated and in the sighs of relief of not being under it, there was now the problem of which Trooper would be chosen to return the shoe to Artie. The assignment went to the best we could offer, Carl Swenson. Carl, a contra player whose mass overpowered even his horn, was all together a football player, a wrestler, and impossibly kind-hearted. As well as Carl was liked, it was an unspoken consensus that just maybe his size would cause the Hyde Park Boys to restrain themselves, if only momentarily.
The exchange in the middle of the gym was tense. Huge dark silhouettes approached from opposite directions. Whether it was pity or cooler heads, the confrontation was cordial. The evening ended out under the doorway lights with a conversation that wandered around the question as to how it could be that a mixed corps from nowhere could actually stand on the field with the likes of Boston and succeed.
From that night forward, “Artie, don’t tro dat chew” was a phrase that brought knowing smiles from those Troopers who were there, generated tales of its tension and terror, and made Carl even larger as a legend.”
