The Knights Drum and Bugle Corps

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that I’m switching web hosting companies for this site. I’m not real happy with the current host, and have started working with another web host for other projects. They’re located in the US (unlike our current host), have servers in the US, are carbon neutral, and aren’t any more expensive than our current host. There’s other nice features that they have, but I won’t bore you with the technical stuff.

Hopefully, there won’t be any issues with downtime, and you won’t notice any difference. However, with any big switch like this, there could very easily be some issues, so I just wanted to warn everyone in advance.

Thanks for your support.

** UPDATE **

As most of you can probably tell, the site has now moved.  There’s a few things that might not work for a little bit, but hopefully things will be much more usable once I’m done.  All of the posts and pages should at least still be in place.

If you have any questions or problems, please contact me at scott@knightscorps.org

I posted these to the Video page, but wanted to post something about them too so people would get a chance to see them. Here’s a few Knights videos from the ’80s that are on Youtube right now (apologies if any of them get taken down, sometimes Youtube considers this kind of stuff to be copyright violations)

1982 Geneseo Knights Semifinals

1984 Geneseo Knights Semifinals

1985 Geneseo Knights Semifinals

1987 Geneseo Knights Semifinals

Just wanted to bring this to people’s attention. There’s a thread going on over at Drum Corps Planet discussing corps that people would like to bring back. Specifically, they’re coming at it from “you get to pick two corps from each region of the country”.
http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=137011

As of this posting, there are 14 comments so far, with two votes for the Geneseo Knights. Just wanted to let you all know, in case any of you wanted to head over there and place your votes for the Knights and other corps you’d like to see come back.

Bart Dixon (snare – ’93) has been appointed principal of Kenwood Middle School (Clarksville, TN), replacing Frank Wilson, who today announced his acceptance of the assistant principalship at Kenwood High School, according to a news release today from the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System.

Dixon was named assistant principal of West Creek High School in February 2009. He previously served five years as band director and after-school program site director at Richview Middle School.

Dixon has served as a music educator on the elementary, middle and high school levels in Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools and schools in Paducah and Hopkinsville, Ky. He earned a Master’s Degree in music with education concentration from Austin Peay State University and an administration endorsement from Cumberland University. He earned a B.S. in music from Austin Peay. He serves as music director at Grace Bible Church (Clarksville, TN).

John Morrell (Percussion/Staff, ’70s-’80s) is organizing a get-together for any Knights in the region who can make it.

From John:
“The place is the Tenny Bowl in Kewanee. the date is Saturday March 20th. We have lanes reserved starting at 2:30pm. They also have pool tables. Will bring cards for those who wish to have some eucher games. The Tenny Bowl also has a short order grill and a beverage license. So old Knights. come one come all, lets have some fellowship.”

For a map and directions:

View Larger Map

Just received the following from Doug Anderson:
“I wanted to get the word out on the website that Tracy Newnam, Snare 75-76 passed away early this morning. His wife Mary (Broxterman), Soprano-Mellophone 73-77 asked that it be posted on the Knights site. The visitation will be Friday evening in Rockton, IL and the funeral will be on Saturday at the Lutheran Church in Rockton.

Times were not set when I spoke with Mary at 8:30 this morning. She told me that she would be back to me with Names, Addresses and Times tonight or tomorrow.”

As soon as I get more information about services, I will post it here.

**Update**

Here is the information provided by Mary (Broxterman) Newnam.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FUNERAL SERVICE IS NOT AT THE CHURCH BUT AT THE FUNERAL
HOME.

Visitation will be held on Friday, February 26th from 4:00 to 8:00 at:

McCorkle Funeral Home
767 N Blackhawk Blvd
Rockton, IL 61072

Funeral Services will be held on Saturday, February 27th at 11:00 with a
luncheon to follow:

McCorkle Funeral Home
767 N Blackhawk Blvd
Rockton, IL 61072

Internment will be Monday, March 1 at 11:00 with a luncheon to follow:

Oakwood Cemetery
Geneseo, IL

Also, you can view Tracy’s obituary at the McCorkle Funeral Home website. I will be sure to post any more information that I receive.

I just wanted to let everyone know that Dorothy (DJ) Johnson was in the hospital over the last week or so. Here are the three related posts that Jeannie posted on Facebook about it.

2/15/10 – “My mom is still in ICU, has been since Sat. Her blood pressure is back to normal, as is her heart rate. But her white count is still too high, the thought is gall stones causing an infection. More tests will be done and they may remove her gall bladder. She slept well last night, she is confused, but she’s not all there either. Thanks Al,for posting this to start with & Thank you to everyone who’s thinking about her.”

2/16/10 – “Update on my Mom, today she is in a regular room, in a chair. She needs her gall bladder out, but is not a good candidate for that right now. In the next few days , she will be released to a Rosewood Care Center and the gall bladder will come out later when other medical issues are resolved. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and support.”

2/20/10 – “DJ is SO much better! Drs don’t what to remove her gall bladder at this time, maybe in 6 months. After 4 days of not knowing what age she was, what decade she was in or who was president, she is back in this era and ticked she missed a chunk of the Olympics. She is in a care center to get strong enough to go home. Cards can be mailed to:
Dorothy Johnson
2211 N. Bigelow
Peoria, IL 61604

Thank you for all your prayers.”

Jeannie also asks that even though DJ’s memory is doing pretty good right now, she asks that you include a note to help her remember, like section, years, and corps you were involved with (Even though most of us know DJ from the Knights, she did also help out with the Blue Stars and Madison Scouts after the Knights folded).

So, someone just posted this over at Drum Corps Planet: http://www.drumcorpsplanet.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=133226. I thought you guys would get a kick out of it, since it’s particularly relevant to the “amp issue” of the last few years. Also, if you guys happen to know what year this is from, it’d be cool to know. Based on the info in the ad, I’m guessing around ’89-’90.

*Edit* A lot of you probably already know this info, but for those that don’t, here’s an update courtesy of Tom Shea:
“That ad is for 1989. The set player in question is Mr. Brian Irons, from 1988, the Chicago show. We became the Quad City Knights for the 88 season, after we had moved out of Geneseo after 1987.
We also had a souvenir ad in DCW I think that said something like “Just because you’re a weenie doesn’t mean you have to dress like one.” ‘Weenie’ was a big word in our camp for a few years.”

As many of you are probably aware, Chase Bank is running a contest through Facebook called Chase Community Giving. Chase is giving money to the charities that get the most votes. Four drum corps, Carolina Crown, Cavaliers, Colts, and Phantom Regiment, have made it to the second and final round (of 100 charities/community organizations). Voting starts on Friday, January 15th and goes through Friday, January 22nd.

The organizations in the final 100 have each come up with proposals for what they would to do with the prize money. For example, the Colts are doing two things: 1. setting up an endowment fund to help disadvantaged kids participate in some of the local music education opportunities and ensembles that are part of the Colts organization; 2. purchasing two new mobile kitchens for summer use by the corps that will spend the rest of the year being used by the Red Cross (for free) to help in disaster situations.

For more information, you can read the article about it on the DCI website.

Another good article about it was written by Kevin Gamin and is readable here.

Once voting begins, everyone has 5 votes, but can only vote for an organization once. I encourage everyone to vote for the four drum corps and another organization of your choice.

So, for those of you on twitter, we now have a twitter account. For now I’m just going to tie it into the website so that it gives everyone another way of accessing the updates from the site. Eventually I’ll be using it for short corps-related comments. Feel free to check it out and follow us at: http://twitter.com/knightscorps or if you already know what’s going on with twitter, that’s @knightscorps.