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PASIC Marching Percussion FestivalBy Lauren Vogel Weiss

When PAS was organized in 1961, marching per-

cussion was quite rudimentary (pardon the pun!).

Drum lines of the ’60s consisted of three or four

snare drums, a matching number of tenor drums,

one or two bass drums, and a pair of cymbals—a

far cry from the 30- to 40-member ensembles of today. And there

was no such thing as marching xylophones, let alone 5.0-octave

marimbas “grounded” in the pit.

PASIC ’85 marching festival

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Just as PAS evolved, so did marching percussion. The for-mation of Drum Corps International (DCI) in 1972 show-cased the expanding drum lines. By the end of that decade, timp-tom trios had morphed into quads. Bass drum lines had three to four “tonal” pitches. The development and widespread use of carriers allowed drum sections to move more. And many drum lines had at least a set of marching bells and a 2.5-octave marching xylophone, if not a 2.0-octave marching marimba and a 2.5-octave marching vibe! As marching bands across the country emulated the innovative drum lines of DCI, marching percussion soon became an important part of the ensemble. But unlike DCI—where the drum section had its own scoring category in competitions—most marching bands judged these drum lines under the music caption, along with wood-winds and brass. There was little or no standard of comparison between different drum lines, nor any specific feedback to assist in their improvement.

THE FIRST DRUM LINE CONTEST When Ward Durrett moved to the Chicago area in the late 1970s, he began teaching marching percussion at several high schools, including the well-known Glenbrook North High School in North-brook, Illinois. “At that time, the thought process was that percus-sion sections weren’t getting much workable, usable info from marching band,” Durrett recalls. “So Peter Herr, director of bands at Glenbrook North, and I were trying to think of something where percussion students could get a more valid input. Because the high school had recently opened a new state-of-the-art auditorium, we came up with the idea of putting marching drum lines on the new stage and offering them the opportunity to perform and be assessed on their own merits. This new contest would give percussionists a chance to find out what other schools were doing, as well as be able to learn from them. “Our first contest, in December of 1980, had only “two colleges and five high schools,” he continues, “but it turned out to be a very positive experience for everybody. The shows were the culmination of marching season. Thanks to effective word of mouth, the next year we had seven colleges and 13 high schools. We owe a great deal to the Glenbrook North band parent organization for taking the risk to support such an event, even though they didn’t make any money the first year. But they stuck with it and, as they say, ‘The rest is his-tory!’” Following the success of the Spartan Marching Percussion Fes-

tivals in Northbrook, Illinois, Durrett—as-sisted by well-known marching percussion specialist Fred San-ford—hoped to bring this new concept to a national level. “Dur-ing the Texas Music Educators Association convention in February of 1982,” remembers Durrett, “Fred, Bob Houston [percussion instructor at East Texas State], Jay Wanamaker [Chair of the PAS March-ing Committee at the time], and I wanted to include it into the PAS convention in Dallas

the following November. Thanks to the additional and persistent efforts of Bob Schietroma [host of that convention and percussion instructor at North Texas State], we ‘sold’ the idea to PAS and held the first national contest later that year.”

PASICS ’82–’87 The first PAS “March-ing Competition” was held at PASIC ’82 in Dal-las on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 21. (This was back when the convention con-tinued through Sunday; even the exhibits were open until noon that day.) Durrett, who was the Marching Percussion Coordinator for Slingerland at that time, was the official “Competition Director,” and Fred Sanford served as the first Master of Ceremonies, a position he would fill for the next 17 years. The contest was held in Stemmons Auditorium at the Loews Anatole Hotel, an excellent venue for performers and audience members alike. Twelve college drum lines from six states converged on Dallas that weekend. “One of my favorite memories from all the festivals was from that one,” Durrett recalls. “Western Illinois University doing a halftime show at their ballgame on Saturday, getting on a bus, driving all night, getting off the bus—no sleep!—performing, coming in second, and getting back on the bus and driving back to Macomb for class.” The University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) won that first contest with a score of 89.75. Judges for the first contest were Rob Carson, Dennis DeLucia (his Bridgemen drum line gave a demonstration at the convention the day before), Marty Hurley, Carl Ruocco, Dan Spalding, and George Tuthill. Lauren Vogel, who would assist Durrett with the contest for the next five years, served as the tabulator, complete with calculator and carbon paper (to provide “instant” recaps without the availabil-ity of a copy machine). “We used the same general format as the Spartan Festival,” Dur-rett explains, “except that we experimented with different judging. We tried the Olympic system—throwing out the highest and low-est score and averaging the rest—but that was a dismal failure. We ended up going back to the system we used at the Spartan Festival the following year in Knoxville.” To emphasize the educational aspect of the new contest, PAS renamed it the “PAS Marching Forum” in 1983, a title that would be used for the next decade. The contest continued to be held on Sunday afternoon for three more years: at the Knoxville Convention Center (PASIC ’83), at the Power Center on the campus of the Uni-versity of Michigan (PASIC ’84), and outdoors on the top level of the Getty Parking Lot Structure at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Los Angeles (PASIC ’85). “It was always an interesting adventure going from site to site,” Durrett remembers. “At the Anatole it was easy because it was on a stage in that marvelous auditorium. But we did it outside in L.A. on Sunday morning, and one of the local residents called the police! Fortunately, we only had five lines that year, so we finished before it became too much of a problem.” The rules for the contest also evolved over the years. For ex-Ward Durrett

Fred Sanford

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ample, PASIC ’85 was the second year in a row that North Texas State University (now the Uni-versity of North Texas) won the PAS title (on their way to a total of 14 national championships), but it may be remem-bered as the year of the “UCLA belly dancers.” So the following year, the rules were revised to state that each performer in the ensemble—includ-ing dancers—must play a percussion instrument. “The drum lines evolved very quickly from ’82, when there was very little, if any, movement, to the point where the col-lege groups, and eventually the more advanced high school groups, were doing a lot of movement,” says Dennis DeLucia, who judged the first two contests at PASIC. “The quality of playing improved rather dramatically, especially at the university level and with so many of the Texas groups. When we were in a location with a lot of Texas schools, the general level was extremely high.” As PAS celebrated its 25th anniversary at PASIC ’86 in Washing-ton, D.C., the Marching Forum moved from Sunday to Friday. (It was not practical to hold the event on Saturday, as that was the day most colleges played their football games and the drum lines were part of the halftime shows.) The Friday schedule has remained in effect ever since. It was also the first year that PASIC appointed a local marching coordinator, Marshall Maley. The PASIC ’86 march-ing event was held at Lisner Auditorium, on the campus of George Washington University. “It wasn’t a problem for the people who were involved to get there,” explains Durrett, “but it was difficult getting the non-marching people to attend. That was always an is-sue when we selected the venues.” In the spirit of education, PASIC tried to expose attendees to all types of percussion, including march-ing, but the distance between venues sometimes made that a difficult proposition. The following statement was printed in the PASIC ’86 program (including the boldface type): “Note! This is the fifth annual PAS National Marching Percussion Forum. Competition open for ob-servation to PASIC ’86 registrants, parents and friends. Please, no noise or applause!” For anyone who has ever attended a PAS marching event, this statement draws a chuckle, as audience re-sponse is an important part of the marching activity. The competition in Washington was also the first time that two previous champions competed against each other: North Texas State’s use of lighted drumsticks during its finale—along with dim-ming the lights in the auditorium—brought the house down as they won their third consecutive title and bested the University of South-western Louisiana by less than a point. NTSU’s show was also the impetus for another rule change: “Use of auditorium/stage lighting will be prohibited.” “The next year was originally supposed to be at the [St. Louis] Arch,” Durrett remembers, “but the reason it was moved to the Scottish Rite Cathedral was because we had to deal with three gov-ernment bodies—the Mississippi River Authority, the National Park Service, and the city of St. Louis—to get permission to use the facil-ity. When the original PASIC host, Pat Hanley, passed away, there was no local person to spearhead all of it. I don’t think people realize

Dennis DeLucia

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the hoops we had to jump through to make this happen year after year.” (PAS did still hold a “March to the Arch” that year, where participants played “Three Camps.”)

HIGH SCHOOL DIVISION After six years of organizing the marching competition at PASIC, Durrett decided to take a break. Lauren Vogel, who had worked with Ward on this event since its inception, took over as Contest Director for PASIC ’88 in San Antonio. There had been several inquiries from high school teachers in Texas about participating in this event, so PAS decided to try a high school divi-sion. Twelve high schools registered in September—the maximum number the schedule would permit—although only nine lines actu-ally competed in November. Ten college lines entered, but two had to cancel due to last-minute scheduling conflicts. This was before the widespread use of computers. All the com-munication, including schedules—and then revised schedules—was done via regular mailings. This was also before the national office or-ganized all the entries and paperwork. Even the judges’ worksheets and scoresheets were prepared by the contest director. San Antonio was also the first location where a meeting was scheduled before the event to allow the directors to see exactly where their groups would perform, as well as where to unload and warm up. PASIC ’88 saw Morehead State University win the first of its four titles in the college division on Friday morning, beating former champion University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL) by less than two points. (The University of North Texas performed in exhibi-tion that year.) L.D. Bell High School from Hurst, Texas won the first high school division on Saturday morning. Following the high school competition, there was an exhibition by the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. This was also the first year that each participant received a certificate, and Remo continued to give “drumhead awards” (special certificates mounted in drumheads) to the winning schools, as well as the first-ever caption awards for Best Snare Line, Tenor Line, Bass Line, Cymbal Line, and Pit. Ward Durrett returned as Contest Director for PASIC ’89 in Nashville. The Marching Forum was held in Jackson Hall of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. This was also the first year that the scores were tabulated on a computer! For the third time in the college division, two prior winners competed against each other—defending champions Morehead State University against three-time winner University of North Texas. UNT won its fifth title. When asked if any lines stood out in his memory from his years of judging and observing the com-petition, Dennis DeLucia paused before replying, “Certainly, North Texas was probably the most dramatically consistent and effective, both in terms of how brilliantly written the programs were and how well the kids were trained, and how well they played ev-ery area, both battery and front ensemble. For me, the other ensemble that stood out at the university

level was Morehead State. I thought they were magnificent for sev-eral years. At the high school level, Marcus stands out in my mind over the years as another one that has been brilliantly written and consistently performed.” The next two conventions—one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast—resulted in smaller contests with no high school divi-sion. The Marching Forum at PASIC ’90 in Philadelphia, organized by Gus Barbaro and held at 12 Caesars, saw only four competing colleges. USL got a rematch of the Washington, D.C. competition, losing to UNT by only half a point. Tad Carpenter was the Contest Director for PASIC ’91 in Ana-heim. Held next door to the Disneyland Hotel at the Pan Pacific Hotel, five colleges competed, with UNT winning its third title in a row and seventh overall. This resulted in yet another rule revision: at the Marching Committee Meeting it was decided that (beginning in 1992) “a winner could only repeat as champions for three con-secutive years before taking a year off from competition. (Exhibition would be allowed.)” PASIC ’92 in New Orleans saw the return of the High School Division with Marcus High School from Flower Mound, Texas winning the first of its ten titles. The competition was held in the Superdome, just a few blocks away from the rest of the convention at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where Morehead State claimed the second of its four titles. Marty Hurley served as the Local Marching Coordinator as well as the Contest Director, assisted by Vogel. New Orleans was also the first time that Al Moffat joined the contest as Stage Manager, a position he has held for the past 20 years. And thanks to Moffat’s dedication, the competition almost always stays on schedule!

PAS MARCHING PERCUSSION FESTIVAL When PASIC moved to Columbus in 1993, PAS decided to re-name the “Marching Forum”the “PAS Marching Percussion Festi-val,” reflecting more of what the competition had become over the years. Also, the term “festival” was a more appealing term for young percussionists than “forum.” Jeff Hartsough and Derrick Logozzo served as co-chairs of Field Percussion for the local planning com-mittee. Thirteen college drum lines competed, with UNT winning its eighth title. Battelle Hall provided an excellent venue for the audi-ence to view the performers from many angles. In 1994, PAS appointed Lauren Vogel Weiss Chair of the March-ing Percussion Committee. This was the first time that the Chair would coordinate the Marching Percussion Festival with the local marching host. She continued as Chair and Contest Director for the next three years. Mike Back was the local marching host for PASIC ’94. The Col-lege Drum Line Division was held at the Atlanta Civic Center on Friday morning, with UNT winning its ninth title in 13 years. The High School Division, held Friday evening, saw Marcus High School win its second championship. That was the first year PAS charged a separate admission fee to the Marching Percussion Fes-tival. Registered PASIC attendees could attend the event as part of the convention, but parents and other fans who had not registered for PASIC could buy a $5.00 ticket that included admission to both the Marching Festival and the exhibit area, which raised $1,625 for PAS. Atlanta was also the first time members of the winning drum Lauren Vogel Weiss

Web ExtraView a list of winners and scores from every PAS Marching Festival atwww.pas.org/publications/September2011webextras.aspx

http://www.pas.org/publications/September2011webextras.aspx

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lines received special PAS Championship T-shirts, thanks to the generous support of Pearl, in addi-tion to the other awards donated by Remo. And for the third year in a row, Pearl donated “tro-phy drums” to the win-ning lines. Most of the manufacturers of march-ing equipment were given the opportunity to donate awards, and the drum line T-shirts were rotated among the companies on a yearly basis. The contest in Atlanta sparked another rule change. After PASIC ’94, the rules included this: “No woodwind, no brass, and no string instruments are allowed. Vocals will be allowed only if the performer plays a percussion instrument for more than half of the total performance time.” This “no clarinet rule” was due to Stockbridge (Georgia) High School using two clarinets in its show at PASIC ’94. Each rule infraction would be a 2-point penalty (e.g., two clarinets would cost a group 4 points). PASIC ’95 was held in Phoenix, and Paul Buyer served as the contest host. The Drum Line Contest, held at Phoenix Symphony Hall, included six colleges and nine high schools, along with an au-dience of over 1,500 people. The college division featured another championship rematch, this one between Morehead State and UNT, with Morehead coming out on top by only a quarter-of-a-point. The high school division also featured a close contest, with Marcus win-ning its third title by defeating Texas rival Plano Senior High School by only a half point. Due to the close contests, the Marching Com-mittee added another rule: “In the case of a numerical tie for first place, the individual/school with the most number of first-place votes will be declared the winner. If it is still a tie, whoever has the highest execution/performance marks will be declared the winner.” PASIC ’95 was also the beginning of a new tradition for the festi-val: a separate program distributed at the venue. It included sched-ules for all the marching competitions as well as pictures and bios for the judges. Special recognition for this “mini program” goes to Shawn Brown, who served as PAS Director of Publications at that time. The 1996 PAS Marching Percussion Festival had one of its two most successful contests in the festival’s history. Thanks to the loca-tion in Nashville, along with the local marching coordinators George Barrett and Julie Davila, PASIC ’96 welcomed 18 college drum lines and 13 high school lines to the Nashville Convention Center. (The other festival that saw 31 lines perform was PASIC 2000 in Dallas.) This was the first time that PAS rented bleachers in an ex-hibit hall venue so the audience could better view the competition. Due to the large number of competing lines, PAS added approxi-mately 1,000 new members in 1996. And many students brought their parents, so there was a definite increase in foot traffic through the exhibit hall. In 1997, Julie Davila was appointed Chair of the Marching Per-cussion Committee, a position she held for the next ten years. She continued the tradition of serving as both chair of the committee and director of the festival. And she was the only contest director who also had marched as a member of a competing (and winning) drum line: the University of North Texas in 1985, 1986, and 1987!

“When you chair the Marching Committee, you don’t get to at-tend much of the actual convention at all,” Davila laughs. “The office and administrative staff were now helping with the logistics of getting supplies, organizing the entries, and drawing for perfor-mance placement. However, the majority of the actual hands-on running of the event was coordinated with the help of [PAS Direc-tor of Event Production & Marketing] Jeff Hartsough, [Graphic Designer] Hillary Henry, myself, and any committee members who volunteered to help. The position of Marching Committee Chair requires a large amount of organizational time leading up to the convention and almost a complete sacrifice of time during the event. In addition to the chair’s large commitment of time and effort, the members of the Marching Committee—some of the activity’s lead-ing authorities in marching percussion—have always been generous to volunteer their time and expertise to adjudicate the Festival and Individuals competitions to be sure that the PASIC experience is positive for all the students.” Over the years, many marching percussion teachers and play-ers volunteered their time to judge the drum line events. Without a separate budget to pay for adjudicators, the festival depended on these people who would already be at the convention. Some of the more frequent adjudicators were Tad Carpenter (who judged drum

line contests 13 times, not including Individuals), Matt Savage (11), Jeff Prosperie (10), Rob Carson and John Wooton (8), and Scott Johnson and Jeff Moore (7). In 1996, and for several years after that, PAS was able to pay each adjudicator a small stipend for his or her time and expenses. Only six drum lines traveled to California for PASIC ’97, where the festival was held in the arena of the Anaheim Convention Center with Carol Carpenter serving as the local marching host. Eleven drum lines attended PASIC ’98 at the Orange County Convention

Julie Davila

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Center in Orlando, where Jeff Moore was the local marching host. UNT won its eleventh PAS Championship, and Plano Senior High School defeated four-time winner Marcus High School for its first national title. PASIC ’99 returned to Columbus and the Battelle Hall venue, but drew only six competing schools. Donnie Gray organized this 18th edition of the festival. The high school division was again won by Marcus, which claimed its fifth national title that decade. This was also the first time since its inception that Fred Sanford did not serve as Master of Ceremonies; his health did not permit him to at-tend the convention, and he passed away on January 23, 2000. His spirit lives on at the PASIC Festival through the award for highest overall ensemble score (regardless of division or category) named in his memory. This traveling award was created to honor Sanford for his passion for the artform and his dedication to the marching com-munity and PAS. “The Festival has had to go through some changes over the years,” Davila says. “With the convention always being held in the fall during the football and marching band competition seasons, there are extra challenges to keep the participation strong. Addition-ally, WGI has become a strong influence in the country, with many schools participating in indoor drum line shows during the winter and spring months. To help meet the challenges of schools across the country trying to decide whether to compete in the fall at PASIC or the spring at WGI, the Marching Committee decided to implement a standstill division at the Festival. Schools could now perform their marching band show music at PASIC and be adjudicated by a terrif-ic judging panel. This would help keep kids and programs involved with PAS without feeling pressured to try to get an entire new show ready for competition in addition to their marching band show. “We also implemented a Small Ensemble division,” she adds. “The Marching Percussion Committee continues to work hard by brain-storming ways to keep the festival a strong entity at PASIC. PAS and the Marching Committee’s first and foremost mission is to the students. The educational value of attending a PASIC is irreplace-able.”

PASIC 2000 The final PASIC of the 20th century brought the Marching Per-cussion Festival back to Texas in one of its most successful contests, again featuring 31 competing ensembles. Kennan Wylie served as the local coordinator for the events held at the Dallas Convention Center. His Marcus High School drum line won its sixth National Championship at PASIC 2000 while UNT added its twelfth title. This was also the first year of a separate high school “standstill”

division (compared to the “marching” division), which was won by L.D. Bell H.S. (who had won the first high school division at PASIC ’88). The PASIC 2000 Marching Percussion Festival introduced audiences to a new Master of Ceremonies, Dennis DeLucia, who holds the position to this day. He was assisted in Dallas by local ra-dio announcer Dan Potter, who some may know as the voice of DCI contests in the South. Is there a difference between judging a show and announcing it? “It’s easy to disengage while emceeing,” DeLucia replies. “I can say my piece, sit down, listen and let my mind wander. I try not to, especially since most of the groups are so good that my mind doesn’t wander. But when you’re judging, you have to be focused all the time because you have a decision to make. As an emcee, I tend to not focus on any one thing in particular; I just step back and try to absorb the totality of what’s being presented. Do I like it or not? Is it well written or not? Is it well played?” Despite the emphasis on scores and winners, the Marching Per-cussion Festival was achieving all of its original goals and then some. It allowed drum lines to receive direct feedback from leading march-ing authorities—each school received an audio tape of comments in addition to scoresheets—and to see what others were doing in the genre. And a healthy dose of competition pushed the composers, ar-rangers, and teachers to new levels as they tried to outperform each other. The Marching Percussion Festival returned to the Nashville Con-vention Center for PASIC 2001, featuring six colleges and twelve high schools (in two categories). Middle Tennessee State University won its first national drum line championship, and Marcus H.S. won its third in a row (making it ineligible to compete in 2002), for a total of seven titles. Hometown favorite Father Ryan H.S. won the High School Standstill Division. The Marching Percussion Festival celebrated its 20th anniversary at PASIC 2002 in Columbus with a new category: Small Ensembles. Two colleges and two high schools entered small ensembles, along with seven other schools in the college division plus two high schools in standstill and three high schools in the marching category. The 2003 festival was held in the Louisville Gardens arena with 25 drum lines (14 high school and 11 college), placing it in the “top 5” for participation. Unusually balmy weather for Louisville in November allowed drum lines to warm up in an adjoining outdoor plaza, en-tertaining local businesspeople during their lunch hour and drawing coverage on local TV stations. PASIC 2004 brought the festival (and 20 drum lines) back to Nashville, where Marcus H.S. won its ninth championship. The festival returned to Columbus (this time in an exhibit hall) at PASIC

2005, where 12 drum lines (nine high school and three college) competed. That year the Fred Sanford Award (for the highest overall ensemble score) went to East Tennessee State University for its small ensemble pre-sentation. Two of the next three festivals were in Texas at the Austin Conven-tion Center: PASIC 2006 brought 30 competing drum lines to the Lone Star state. Texas Christian University won its first PAS championship in the college division, while perennial powerhouse UNT brought only two small ensembles (which placed first and second). It was a tight race in the high school marching drum line divi-sion; Marcus H.S. and Flower Mound H.S. tied, but because of the tiebreak The University of North Texas won the first Fred Sanford award at PASIC 2002.

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rule (counting the number of first-place votes), Flower Mound won the first of its two titles (the other was at PASIC 2007). The Fred Sanford Award that year went to Georgetown (Texas) High School for its standstill performance. “Whenever the convention made it in to a part of the country where we knew there was already a pool, the Marching Festival was always going to be successful,” explains Durrett. “It was always going to be big in Tennessee, but it was always unbelievably big any-where in Texas.” In 2007, PAS appointed Neal Flum Interim Chair of the March-ing Percussion Committee, a position he would be given on a per-manent basis in 2008. That year saw 29 competing units converge in Austin (22 high school drum lines, including two from Marcus and two from Colleyville Heritage, and seven colleges, plus one in exhibition). Colleyville Heritage High School (Colleyville, Texas) narrowly defeated Marcus for its second championship, while UNT captured its 14th title in the festival’s history. Prior to the Awards ceremony, longtime PAS judge Scott Johnson (perhaps better known as the Director of Percussion for the World Champion Con-cord Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps) played the snare drum solo he performed in 1978 when he won DCI Individuals. “That was a particularly wonderful moment for me,” Flum re-members, “because Scott taught me in the Blue Devils when I played tenors in 1983.” Flum also added more exhibitions the next two years: Tim Jackson performed a multi-tenor solo and Matt Sav-age played a snare solo as well as a multiple marching percussion piece in 2009. And last year, The Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps performed. When PASIC was scheduled for Indianapolis in 2009, the format of the marching festival had to change. “This area—Indiana, Ohio, Michigan—has really become the heartbeat of the indoor WGI season,” explains Dennis DeLucia. “Those groups are no longer willing to put together an indoor show for November. So we had to do something different and change the format dramatically to more of a clinic setting where there is input from one classically-oriented percussion clinician and one or two marching-oriented people. The scope is much broader now that there are no scores any longer. I find it fascinating.” PAS appointed an ad hoc committee consisting of DeLucia, Jeff Hartsough, Michael Kenyon, Don Click, and Neal Flum to rethink the Marching Festival structure and search for ways to increase the educational focus of the festival when PASIC is hosted in the Mid-west. “We met several times to develop some ideas about how we might increase the level of participation in the Marching Percussion Festival,” says Flum. “One of the ideas, contributed by Dennis, that came from our discussions was to have an interactive format where groups could come and perform whatever they wanted with what-ever instrumentation they wanted. They would receive input from clinicians—not just marching clinicians but also people from outside the world of marching percussion.” The first interactive marching clinic—almost a master class for drum lines—was held at PASIC 2009 with DeLucia and She-e Wu working with four high school ensembles. The following year, six high schools participated in the interactive session, which was evalu-ated by Tom Aungst and Michael Burritt.

INDIVIDUALS Another important aspect of the Marching Percussion competition at PASIC is the Individuals (or solo) contest. First added for college students in 1983, it was coordinated during its early years by Lauren Vogel, who had won DCI’s “Best Individual Keyboard” in 1982 as a member of the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps. She wanted to offer that competitive opportunity to members of PAS, creating another reason to join the organization. The first “Individuals Competition for Marching Instruments”

was held on Sunday morning at PASIC ’83 in Knoxville. With only one category, snare drummer John Wooton, then a stu-dent at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, was selected as the win-ner. The following year, there were categories for snare, tenor, and key-board. North Texas State University student Ken-nan Wylie won the first of his three snare drum titles (the others were in 1985 and 1987), Leif Marwede from Michigan State won the first tenor title, and Tim Tiedemann won the first PAS keyboard title. The timpani category was added in 1987. The list of college students who have won a PAS Individual Award is almost a “Who’s Who” in the field of percussion. Besides the aforementioned Wooton (now the Director of Percussion Stud-ies at the University of Southern Mississippi) and Wylie (who has been teaching at Marcus High School for 20 years), some of the Individual winners include: Andrew Beall (Keyboard 2001, Manhat-tan School of Music), composer, performer and current New York PAS Chapter President; David Bergman (Timpani 2001, UNT),

Neal Flum

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U.S. Military Academy Band; Dr. Robert Bridge (Keyboard 1985 and 1986, NTSU), Professor of Percussion at Onondaga Com-munity College; Tim Jackson (Tenor 2005, Ohio State Univer-sity), four-time DCI Multi-Tenor Champion and current Battery Coordinator for the Bluecoats Drum & Bugle Corps; JJ Pipitone (Tenor 1990, Morehead State University), Percussion Instructor at Grapevine (Texas) High School and DCI Judge; Jeff Prosperie (Snare 1988, Louisiana State University), USMA “Hellcats” and former Director of Percussion Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette; Jeff Queen (Snare 1994 and 1995, UNT), original cast member of the Tony-award-winning Broadway show Blast; and She-e Wu (Keyboard 1991, UNT), Associate Professor of Percussion at Northwestern University. Many past Individual winners have gone on to teach at the high school level, preparing young students to follow in their footsteps. Listing oneself as the winner of a PAS Indi-vidual title is a valuable credential on resumes and bios of dozens of percussionists across the country. One other well-known PASIC Individuals winner is Julie Sut-ton, a student at NTSU who won the College Keyboard category in 1987. Better known today as Julie Davila, her recollection of that PASIC is still strong. “I have terrific memories of the year I per-formed in the snare line with the University of North Texas drum line and won mallet individuals,” she recalls. “I came off the stage after performing my mallet solo in exhibition at the conclusion of the festival, and I’ll never forget how it felt when Fred Sanford said, ‘You just played your ass off! Great job!’ I had idolized him through my high school and college years, and it was always a great feeling to know that even though he was the announcer for the festival, he was always watching and rooting for you.” By 1985, the Individuals contest was moved from Sunday to Saturday, and then the following year to Thursday, where it has re-mained ever since. In 1994, High School Individuals were added to the festival, with 15 competitors that first year. A Rudimental Snare category was added in 1994 but only drew one competitor its first year. A Multiple Percussion category was added to the College Divi-sion in 1996 and reinstated in 2010. Thanks to Vogel’s industry connections from her years at Lone Star Percussion, she was able to convince more companies to donate awards to the contest as the years went by. Now, in addition to the drum lines receiving trophies as well as special T-shirts and sticks for each member, Individual winners also received a prize. Vic Firth contributed a stick bag full of mallets and sticks to the winners. By 2001, over 90 students, representing almost two dozen states, competed in Individuals. At PASIC 2004, the number of Individuals grew to 100 for the first time—58 high school students and 42 col-lege, representing 25 states. PASIC 2005 saw the first international entries—three snare drummers from the University of Adelaide in South Australia. And the Individuals contest reached its peak one year later in Austin where 107 individuals (65 high school and 42 college) representing 21 states competed at PASIC 2006.

PASIC 2011 “This year we will have the interactive format again,” Neal Flum explains. “The guest clinicians will be Michael McIntosh and Robert van Sice. After the morning session, we are scheduled to have exhi-bitions by Oklahoma State University, the University of Massachu-setts, and the Madison Scouts Drum & Bugle Corps, followed by exhibitions from the high school Individual award winners. We’ve added a second format—an ‘invitational’—to complete the rest of the day. We sent invitations to various highly respected marching percussion programs around the United States, and we hope to have them perform and be evaluated by three outstanding clinicians: Julie Davila, Bret Kuhn, and Tom Rarick. After each group performs, one of the clinicians will make comments to the students. At the end of that session, we’ll have the college Individual competition winners

followed by a clinic/performance from Rhythm X, a past champion in WGI’s Independent World classification.”

CONCLUSION Ward Durrett puts the PAS Marching Percussion Festival in perspective. “It’s an important link in the evolution of the indoor competitive activity as it exists today. Having those early contests at PASIC gave the concept credibility. Marching percussion is a legiti-mate ensemble art form, and it involves so many more young people than other avenues of performance. The Marching Percussion Fes-tival is a major part of the convention. Those of us involved in the beginning saw its value early on and worked hard to keep it a part of PAS.” “The Marching Percussion Festival has always been a critical part of the overall PASIC experience,” adds Julie Davila. “While there are several areas of interest for young people at the convention, marching percussion has always been a leader for that younger de-mographic. The Festival, as well as the marching clinics and the In-dividuals competition, has served as a ‘hook’ for many students and teachers through the years. The Festival is the best way to involve a large number of high school and college students. Not only do they enjoy the privilege of performing at PASIC, they also have full ac-cess to all the other concerts and clinics throughout the duration of the convention. The diversity of PASIC and the additional exposure to all genres of percussion can motivate students to explore numer-ous areas of percussion, broadening their interests and abilities.” On behalf of literally thousands of participants in the PAS March-ing Percussion Festival over the years, “thank you” to all the volun-teer leaders, judges, committee chairs and members, manufacturers, artists, and clinicians for their contributions in creating this impor-tant component of PASIC and PAS history. PN