Monday Memory: That time when we had a billboard!
While the Bluecoats were officially born on December 3, 1972, the corps did not hit the competitive field until summer of 1974. The first Bloo summer was as a parade corps that stayed fairly close to headquarters at the Canton Police Boys Club. But in 1974 the corps fundraised for traditional corps uniforms and produced its first field show and hosted the very first Innovations IN BRASS.
By 1975 the corps was ready to step up their game and reached out locally to drum up support for not just the corps but for that hosted drum corps show. The result was a billboard in the community that folks would drive past daily that showed the artist sketch of the new uniform and the second Innovations IN BRASS contest. The only glitch to the billboard was the corps name was printed as two words, instead of one. That billboard attracted drum corps attention across the country as the September 1975 edition of Drum Corps New ran the photo of the billboard with a caption.
Innovations IN BRASS II was a great success, in part thanks to the billboard, while only being a 5-corps show. In the 1970s the corps was proudly sponsored by American Legion Post 44, and it would be the very next year that Bluecoats began a run of state VFW and American Legion championships.
The Innovations IN BRASS program also contained a one page feature on what it took to be in drum corps in 1975. 21 hours a week in the winter, 25 hours in the spring and 30 to 35 hours a week after school ends was the time invested in those days. Yes, drum corps in the 70s wasn’t a one camp a season and month of Spring Training activity that it is today.
With a predominantly local membership, those coming from a distance several times a week were driving all the way from Akron. Just a 20-minute commute down the highway.
But how many corps can say they had their own billboard to attract attention to the group?
