Belleville Black Knights Drum and Bugle Corps alumni reunion set for later this month
When the Belleville Black Knights Drum and Bugle Corps alumni get together you might expect to hear music.
After all, the members spent much of their summers as teenagers riding in buses across the United States and even Canada competing in marching contests, parades and other events.
There will be recordings of old performances and it is almost impossible to stop old drummers from drumming — hence the planned drumming demonstration.
But there may be an occasional toot as well this year because the alumni group that sponsors the reunion has another project besides remembering old times. It will hold a silent auction as well as an online auction of memorabilia from the Black Knights, the Bellettes All Girl Drum and Bugle Corps and the Belleville Gabrielettes All Girl Drum and Bugle Corps.
There are more than 50 lots with several unusual old horns and someone is bound to try them out. There also are CDs, DVDs, a few trophies, uniform sketches from former leader Roger Kaiser and even some uniforms.
The money raised will go towards a memorial to be installed on the northwest corner of the downtown square near the Belleville Hall of Fame. It will feature the logos of all three groups on a bronze plaque. It is estimated to cost more than $7,000.
But organizers are optimistic about the auction and expect a good attendance. Any extra money raised will go toward a scholarship or financing for a youth interested in joining a similar modern day corps. Details have yet to be worked out.
The day also will include a performance by the Ainad Shrine Drum and Bugle Corps at 2 p.m.
The Black Knights were founded in 1953 by Forrest Creson and Vern Poole. The group disbanded in 1990. They traveled all over the country during the summer and won numerous awards and a few national championships. They even traveled as far north as Toronto and Montreal. Anyone could join and musical knowledge wasn’t required, said Craig Brethauer, head of the alumni planning committee.
“I couldn’t play a lick and they taught me,” he said.
Talk often is nostalgic of the good old days spent on buses, usually with minimal air conditioning going all over the land from New York to Los Angeles.
“Minimal, said Steve McCarty, another committee member, about the air conditioning, “but you had to keep the windows up in case it did work.”
Members slept wherever they could, Brethauer said, sometimes on church floors or even sometimes stretched out on the floor of a bus, under the seats and in the aisle. Showers were wherever they could be found even if standing over a sink in a gas station bathroom.
There were hard times, especially on holidays when they might march in several parades a day but now time has turned any rough times to fond memories,
“I think, to a person anyone you talked to wouldn’t have changed a thing,” Brethauer said..
The group was all male when it began but later became coed after the Bellettes disbanded in 1978. The Knights often had more than 100 members but numbers varied. Fundraising was a constant so that members didn’t have to pay large fees to join.
Event details
The event is scheduled from 1-6 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14, at Crehan’s Irish Pub in Belleville at 5500 North Belt West. Food and drink can only be purchased from the pub.
Admission is open to the public and costs $5.
For more information on the reunion and the online auction, you can visit the Belleville Black Knights Drum and Bugle Corps Facebook page.
