Monday Memory: When Some of Us Rang in the New Year in Dallas
It started out as a typical winter break drum corps camp in late December 1987. There was plenty of excitement on its own because this was the second off-season rehearsal following Bluecoats cracking into the top 12. But for about a dozen members of the corps, this camp would be different. They would leave early and travel over 1,000 miles to do drum corps. In the off-season. On New Year’s Day.
In 1987 Drum Corps Midwest (DCM), then one of the regional drum corps circuits that fed into Drum Corps International, embarked on the first of many special “All Star” drum corps events. This inaugural event was billed the Drum Corps Midwest All-Stars and they found a parade in Dallas, Texas that, with no previous history as an organization, would let the group perform. Ostensibly, the All Star Corps was made up of the two dozen members corps from DCM sending between five and twelve members. Each corps determined their all-stars on their own merits. The performance event would be the Cotton Bowl Parade in downtown Dallas on New Year’s Day that, at the time, was nationally televised.
Bluecoats Scott Wintrip and Mark Mankins get their All Star sashes adjusted by volunteers
In the wee small hours of the second day of the December camp, those dozen Bluecoat veterans wearily woke up hours before the regular Sunday wake-up call. They showered, ate and piled into two vehicles to begin the first leg of the journey of this new DCM venture. Six groggy hours later, the Bloo bunch showed up at the corps hall of the Star of Indiana Drum & Bugle Corps. This was the rally point for the DCM corps, whose membership came from Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska.
A short rehearsal introduced the music to the 150-plus member All Star Unit. With the newness of the event, and the various levels of coordination within the member corps, some individuals were looking at the music for the very first time while others had rehearsed it. The original plan was to alter between the Kilties Drum & Bugle Corps legendary Auld Lang Syne and the Madison Scouts previous season’s closer Stars & Stripes. It didn’t take long for the instructional staff to realize that one chart would be a handful, let alone trying to teach a top 12 corps’ previous season’s closer in a few hours.
Before the sun set, the group boarded about a dozen buses and began the 12 hour trip to Texas. Along the way the buses would peel off to stop at fast food restaurants, but for the sake of time, members did not disembark and food had been ordered and prepared in advance. Bags of sandwiches were handed up to each bus and the journey continued.
Many of the Midwesterners barely noticed that upon arriving in Dallas it was unusually cold, with the temperate hovering in the 30s. For Dallas, this was 20 degrees below normal. After overnightting at a typical drum corps housing location followed by another rehearsal day, a night of fun was in store for the All Star Corps. It was New Year’s Eve. But Dallas in 1987, New Year’s Eve didn’t have much to offer a group of underage teens. The All Star members found themselves wandering a local mall where most stores had closed early and the only open venues were a theater, a bar (where those age-outs or age-outs to be cozied up) and an indoor ice skating rink. In typical drum corps fashion, fun was made anyway.
Bluecoat Baritones Salem Grimm (foreground) and Jay Wise (behind) march in the DCM All Star parade.
But unlike typical drum corps fashion, “show day” arrived way too early and before dawn broke members were up and prepping for the day’s event. Arriving just after sunrise in sketchy parts of urban Dallas, typical drum corps returned: All Star members had to “hurry up and wait” to step off on the parade.
And waiting in freezing temperatures.
Bluecoat members chuckled, as it was the only time that the corps’ double-breasted, winter wool uniforms for the brass and percussion actually were a weather advantage. Many other corps had by this time adopted thinner polyester summer uniforms and were ill-prepared for the weather in Dallas.
The Cotton Bowl Parade in its day was a well-known event, but perhaps the weather in this year knocked down attendance. Playing before pockets of people instead of packed crowds, the parade went off like any parade. The All Star Members were glad to play often to generate heat and distraction from the cold. The group did make the national broadcast, if only for 90 seconds.
It would be the first of many Drum Corps All Star events that would extend into the 1990s and then again in the early 2000s. While this event was exclusive to Drum Corps Midwest, over the years the collaboration would extend to the rest of the drum corps activity, including Senior Corps. Over time, these All Star iterations would perform on the parade route at the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl and Macy’s on Thanksgiving.
The Inaugural Drum Corps Midwest All Stars at the 1988 Cotton Bowl Parade
