Marching Raiders 1972 through 1981
Marching Raiders 1982 through 1991
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The briefcase I have used since 1990, or so, isn't the one I started with though. I started storing band items in a briefcase during the summer between my junior and senior years. When we found out Dennis Carswell was leaving, I went with the upcoming season’s drum majors Dean Mullis and Lonnie Robinson to Carswell's apartment in Cordova. We helped him pack up his last few items and load them into his vehicle. There were some things left that he was going to throw away, like a broken Electronic Battleship game I ended up keeping another ten years before trashing, and some other things he didn't have room to carry with him but didn't want them thrown away either. One of those items was his old briefcase, which he gave me. I began then to keep my mounting pile of band junk, as I thought of it in those days, in that briefcase. Sheet music, contest programs, newspaper articles, and even a stinky bottle of valve oil that, after twenty plus years, has probably left every single item stored with it highly flammable. I used his old briefcase for about 10 years after that, but by then it wasn't holding up too well, so I moved things into my very own old briefcase, which was structurally sound, but after being with me during a motorcycle wreck, didn't look businesslike anymore. I finally threw Carswell's old briefcase away when it was falling apart, but it certainly did a good job, by saving my band memorabilia which may have otherwise fallen victim to time and apathy. Here are some of my items and those submitted by our friends.
The F Troop Flag It was always inspiring to see Alvin Goins (Marching Raider Class of 1980) standing atop the press box waving this huge flag back and forth during our performances. I don't know where this ultimate piece of memorabilia is these days, but if anyone does, please let me know, so I can take some photos to put here and elsewhere around this site. |
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Ken Harrelson found Freddie First Place Frog in the trash after an unknowing and/or uncaring person threw him away. |
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Plumage Plumes worn with the band's headgear from the beginning through the 1978 season. |
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Introduced In 1981 This jacket had the same design as this year's band t-shirts. The jacket pictured here is actually Jeff Bullard's, and I've had it since before we graduated in 1984. Somehow we mixed them up on a band trip and never got around to swapping them back. I'll have to ask if he still has mine... |
Drummer's Tools Here are some real Yakety Sticks,
Band T-Shirt circa 1976
This is the best image I could find, so if you have one of these, or one from any year, let me know, so I can share it here. |
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1982 MBA Patches and Buttons
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MBA Shirts And More Band Festival Programs 1981 |
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Open the 1982 Raider Band Festival program
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I played bass, which is why I kept this neck from a practice sousaphone and mouth piece links from the silver performance version (they were damaged).
Why don't I have a bass mouthpiece, too? Why do I have the mouthpieces from a French horn and a trumpet instead?
Oh, the unanswered questions of youth!
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Introduced in 1982 The same jacket was used for many years with only minor changes. This more traditional style jacket was thicker and came with a hood, which made it much warmer than the older jackets had been, but it was so similar to the school's sports jackets (exactly the same except for the hood) that it didn't stand out. |
Marching Raiders found lots of ways to disguish their jackets from their classmates sports jackets. Here is the 1982 jacket dressed out by Aldo Simmons (82-84). |
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In the summer of 1983 the band's staff and boosters embarked on a effort to sell the school on the idea of new uniforms. One of the promotional items handed out by the uniform company was this button, which begat a Marching Raider catch phrase. Anything and everything positive that summer and through the '83-84 school year could easily be described, and your excitement reagarding it conveyed, to anyone by simply starting a statement about it with these two words... 'Happiness Is...' 'Happiness is no homework this weekend, Happiness is winning the contest, Happiness is going to MBA, Happiness is securing the back seat for the bus trip, Happiness is being a Marching Raider and even.... Happiness is seeing Star Trek II: The Search For Spock this weekend .' Ok, I'm the only one who ever used the last one, but you get the idea.
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Boogie Down was a play on the name on our Al Jarreau number, but for those of us who didn't know it at the time, I 'd like to point out that by December of 1983, Disco had long been dead. That dance was so much fun, we decided to have another after the Band Banquet and awards, but this time, it wasn't called a disco.
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You've already seen these if you've been to the Bands of America pages, but I've decided to include them here as well. For the second day of Preliminary Competition in 1982.
The stub from 1983's second day of Preliminary competitions.
The 1983 Finals stub from that Saturday night.
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MBA Grand National Championships' Keepsake
Remember These?
I had forgotten all about these thick sets of instructional diagrams for each song in the show until I ran across my copy of the one for our 1983 opener, Santa Esmerelda. |
