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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, October 3, 1967
Band plays new fight song
By Rocky Entriken Kansan Staff Reporter
A new KU fight song, the 1967 pom-pon girls, a 120-man "barbershop quartet" and a unique precision drill routine will highlight the KU Marching Band's halftime show at the Parent's Day football game Saturday.
"The entire show is dedicated to Parent's Day," said Associate Professor Kenneth Bloomquist, director of the Marching Band. "All of the music is from the era when the parents of today's KU students were of college age."
The show begins with a precision drill to the "St. Louis Blues March" made famous by Glenn Miller's 1944 Army Air Force band. The KU band enters the field in one large triangle which breaks into several smaller triangles. While in the smaller triangles, each group performs its own drill routine.
Triangles unique
"To my knowledge," Bloomquist said, "a precision drill has never been done before using triangles as a base. The base is always a straight rank or file.
"Following the triangle drill routine," Bloomquist said, "the band will pay a special tribute to the parents. They will sing, in four-part harmony, all 120 of them, 'I Want A Girl Just Like the Girl That Married Dear Old Dad.'"
This is also something new for the band. While they have sung in unison on the field before, this is the first time full harmony has been done.
"The Fighting Jayhawk"
The band will then depart momentarily from the music of the 1940s to introduce "The Fighting Jayhawk," a new KU fight song written by a freshman member of the band.
Last summer, Davis again attended the camp here. "The camp's Varsity Band played it," Davis said. "Mr. Bloomquist heard it and asked me if I could add a fanfare and break strain and make a fight song out of it."
The composer, William D. Davis, Natchitoches, La., said the song was originally a march written for his high school band. Davis had attended the Midwestern Music and Art Camp here in the summer of 1966 and wrote the song shortly after returning home.
Fight song premiere
"I never dreamed the song would be played here," said a happily astonished Davis.
Davis did, and the Marching Band will premiere "The Fighting Jayhawk" Saturday. Davis' new break strain includes a yell which will be taught to the students during the game.
The 1967 pom-pon squad will be introduced during the show's finale, an arrangement of the Benny Goodman standard. "Sing, Sing, Sing," written especially for the Marching Band by Roy Guenther, teaching associate in wind and percussion.
Dee Dee Davis, Shawnee Mission senior and head pom-pon girl, said the routine they will do will be different from the pom-pon routines they have done in the past.
"It will be more on the order of a stage routine." Miss Davis said.
Precision poses problems
The band, which began rehearsals for the show on the first day of classes, was having some trouble learning one of the more intricate marching maneuvers last week.
Bloomquist challenged them:
"Is it too hard?"
"No! " the band shouted back. "Can you do it?"
"Yes!"
They generally do.
PREPARING FOR PARENTS' DAY
A KU band member listens to instructions while practicing for the half-time show to be presented at the football game Saturday. The band will introduce a new fight song.
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Everyone has seen a baton twirler throw his baton high in the air and catch it again, but this Saturday, the trick will be done with a six pound drum major's baton.
Judy Sanford Pat McConnell Paula Rigg Diana Busey Beverly Jenkins
Douglas Maxwell, St. Louis, Mo., junior and drum major for the Marching Band, will perform the feat for the first time by a KU drum major at the pre-game show of the Kansas-Ohio football game. Providing the wind speed isn't too fierce.
"If the wind is less than 30 miles per hour, I will throw it." Maxwell said. "It will go about 60 or 70 feet in the air—about three-quarters of the height of the stadium."
The only other thing that slightly handicaps Maxwell in his baton toss is the large busby he wears on his head as part of his drum major's uniform.
"When I look up to follow the flight of the baton, the busby pulls my head back and I kind of lose my balance," Maxwell said.
Drum major plans horrendous toss
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Maxwell got the idea to toss the heavy baton last summer while watching a television special about Africa.
"There was this Watusi drum major from Kenya who threw his baton about twenty feet in the air," Maxwell said. "I thought if he could do it, why couldn't I?"
Maxwell said he tried a twenty foot tosse and caught it.
"I've been trying for higher tosses ever since.
"The only thing I ever twirled before were tennis rackets," Maxwell said. "I've never worked with a regular twirler's baton."
Maxwell has had experience as a drum major, however. He was
once the drum major for the DeMolay Drum and Bugle Corps in St. Louis.
Maxwell is a member of Phi Mu Alpha (Sinfonia), a men's professional music fraternity.
"One of the precepts of Sinfonia is 'To advance the cause of music in America,'" Maxwell said. "This is my way of doing that."
"My only problem is convincing myself I can catch the thing in front of 50,000 people."
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