1984 Madison Scouts
Two years after my Southernaires experience, I'm at North Texas State studying to be a band director. Stuck in a co-dependent rebound relationship and questioning whether I really wanted to be an educator, I started looking for a way to escape for the summer. Strangely I remained a fan of drum corps and attended the championships in 1983 as a spectator. So I decided to return to Wisconsin and audition for the corps I most liked...the all-male Madison Scouts.
The Scouts had a long tradition and very strong organization and this was definitely a cut above what I had experienced with my two previous corps. However, I fit in with this bunch even more poorly than I did with my other corps. In a presidential election year, my independent Democratic spirit instantly and painfully clashed with the Republican fraternal cohesion of the group. The workload was vicious with overnight travel after performances followed by 9AM rehearsal calls the next day. Only peer pressure and my own ego kept me with the Scouts through to a 7th place finish at finals.
Madison corp director Scott Stewart (a great guy) called me in the spring of 1985 and asked me to return for one final summer. But I declined, citing a desire to get on with my life...which I did, graduating with a Music Ed degree and moving on to a master's in Computer Science the following year.
Thankfully, my curse did not befall the Scouts as they won the championship in 1985 and continued on successfully.
