A Visit to the Museum – IV
Like the marching arts, the holiday season came with an expected downturn in donations and activity. However, several donations did come into the museum following the New Year’s holiday.
Debbie Farrham sent in several items from the Mello-Dears All-girl corps from Owego, New York; a jacket, two magnet ovals, and a reunion program book. Tracie Park, a former member of the Mello-Dears and their Mello-Debs feeder corps, offered the full uniform with sashes and boots that she wore as drum major of their reunion alumna corps, along with a nice letter describing how her participation in the corps affected her life. Joel Leson, a former member of several corps, contributed one jacket each from the Yankee-Rebels and the Reilly Raiders. The museum is thankful to the donors for these generous and important contributions. Additional donations of marching arts memorabilia (uniforms, flags, program books, jackets and other apparel, etc.) or cash at always welcomed and appreciated. Items should be sent to Curator Bill Ives at the address shown below.
This would be a good time to introduce several members of the staff of the Marching Pageantry Arts Museum. Most recently, “Team History” welcomed Ryan Appelstein in December. He was on hand to assist Curator Bill Ives return the jackets seen in the attached corps jacket “Christmas tree” photos and assisted in inventorying nearly 70 bugles currently in the collection. The horns go back to the 1930s. Ryan was introduced to the museum collection at the Collegiate Band Festival in Allentown, Pennsylvania this past fall. He is a snare drummer in the band at West Chester University in Pennsylvania and composes for various ensembles at the school. His mission is to educate people of all generations about the roots of this activity as well as the power that music can have on all people through participation in the marching arts.
Sarah Fabian, of Perry Hall Maryland, attended Perry Hall High School, studied Music Education at Towson University, and sought a Ph.D. degree in Music Education at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia. She is an assistant band director at Calvert Hall College High School, a Catholic college preparatory high school for boys, located in Towson, Maryland. She is also a private drum instructor at Baltimore School for Drumming and has served as a bass tech for United Percussion, the Reading Buccaneers, the Colts, the Crossmen, and the Cadets. She serves the museum as Team Leader of Education.
One of the major contributors of their time to the museum is Tom Norton of Titusville, Florida. He is an archivist for the museum and retired after a career in Information Technology with Merrill Lynch, IBM, Metlife, and his own firm, TJN Consulting Systems. His major activity with the museum has been the collection and cataloguing of the various audio and video drum corps media and managing the huge task of preserving analog media in a controlled environment and converting these into various digital formats more likely to survive the test of time. Tom’s participation in the activity includes performing with or instructing several Hudson Valley, New York corps, the Hawthorne Caballeros, and the New York Skyliners Alumni. He is also a frequent contributor to the various drum corps sites on Facebook and creates many of the listings, spreadsheets, maps, and diagrams seen there and in various documents contained within the museum archives..
The daunting task of creating a web site for the museum is ongoing with thanks to the efforts of Phil Bigelow. Ultimately, the web site will contain a list of every item in the museum collection. A major cash donor to the museum, Chris is also the webmaster of the www.corpsreps.com and www.dcxmuseum.com web sites. An announcement on the completion of the museum web site will appear at a later date in this column.
The Marching Pageantry Arts Museum is currently located at the historic Archer-Epler VFW Post 979, 6736 Marshall Road, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. Bill Ives is President, CEO, and archivist of the museum corporation, an IRS 501(c)(3) charitable corporation. Donations of drum corps, marching band, and color guard memorabilia are always welcome. Cash donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law and may be made payable to:
Marching Pageantry Arts Museum
c/o Bill Ives
1024 Second Avenue
Media, PA 19063
The museum is currently open on Monday evenings from 6:00 to 10:00 PM by appointment only. Bill can be reached by e-mail at ivesbill@mac.com or by phone at (610) 937-6555.
It is asked that individuals consider making donations through their Will and/or that next of kin of a deceased loved one donate drum corps artifacts (equipment, jackets, uniforms, t-shirts, program books, flags, etc.) to the museum. We have heard a number of stories where valuable items have been disposed or destroyed by “uninitiated” surviving family members.
The Marching Pageantry Arts Museum – “A story worth telling and worth knowing”