Argonne Rebels

Other Names:AL Post #180

Great Bend, KS United States
Founded: 1947

Inactive Junior

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Results from final championship competition of the year Position: 8 Score: 82.550
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Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa Tintypes - Original Broadway Cast - DRG 5196
Shenandoah by Traditional How The West Was Won Soundtrack

The Argonne Rebels Drum and Bugle Corps were an Open Class (now known as World Class) competitive junior drum and bugle corps based in Great Bend and Barton County, Kansas.

Rev. Joseph Tockert, parish priest of the St. Rose Catholic Church of Great Bend, and John Taff, a musician, started a drum and bugle corps for the parish Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops to be sponsored by the local Knights of Columbus council. The corps had its first public performance on November 26, 1947.

American Legion Argonne Post 180 (which had been named after the Argonne Forest, the site of major U.S. military action during World War I) assumed the corps' sponsorship in 1949. The corps was renamed the Argonne Drum and Bugle Corps, membership was opened to all local youth, and Glen Opie was appointed corps director.

Argonne competed with other Great Plains area corps in the 1950s and 1960s. Legend has it that the group's nickname resulted when an enthusiastic parent yelled, "Go, you rebels!" during a 1952 contest. In 1955, the Rebels won the first of thirteen Kansas State American Legion championships. From the mid-1950s, Argonne was a major player on the national drum corps scene. They were in the American Legion National finals in 1955, '56, '61, '63, '65, '71, and '72; a in VFW National finals from 1968 through 1972. The Argonne corps were Legion National Champions in 1971 and '72, and were proclaimed champions in '73, although no championship contest was held. The corps was particularly noted for its horn line, which was generally considered to be the premier brass section in drum corps; on several occasions, the line received a perfect score of 5.0 for Content Analysis.. Their brass instructor during these years was Drum Corps International (DCI) Hall of Fame member Sandra Opie, who later became a judge.

In 1971, two organizations were started with the intent of giving the drum corps more control over their activity, which was then largely governed by the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The Midwest Combine was made up of the Blue Stars, Cavaliers, Madison Scouts, Santa Clara Vanguard, and the Troopers; and the United Organization of Junior Corps (also known as the "Alliance"), was formed by the 27th Lancers, Garfield Cadets, Boston Crusaders, Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights, and Blue Rock. In 1972, the Argonne Rebels, the Anaheim Kingsmen, the De La Salle Oaklands joined with the ten corps from the Midwest Combine and the Alliance as founding members of Drum Corps International, which remains as the sanctioning body for junior corps in North America.

In 1973, the expectations for Argonne were extremely high; not only had the corps finished in fifth place at the first DCI championship, but most of the members would be returning. Then, the season's musical arrangements were not delivered by the arranger. Frank Minear, lead trumpeter for the Stan Kenton band had offered to write charts for the corps, so Argonne turned to him. Minear's arrangements of "Fanfare For The New" and "Málaga" were transcriptions straight from the Kenton band's arrangements, and when combined with Ken Norman's arrangement of "Stars and Stripes Forever", the 1973 Argonne Rebels had what was very likely the most technically complex musical program that had ever been performed by a drum and bugle corps up to that time. Unfortunately, although things were changing under the new Drum Corps International, technical difficulty was not yet taken into consideration in judging a corps' performance. Getting the sounds to the fans in the stands in proper synchronization was such a problem that senior corps show designer and Drum Corps Hall of Fame member Vince Bruni was brought in to redesign the show in mid-season. Argonne finished in eleventh place at DCI World Championship finals at Whitewater, Wisconsin, but the season was a disappointment for the members whose early expectations had been so high. Future DCI Hall of Fame members Truman Crawford, Bernard Baggs, and Don Angelica addressed the corps immediately after the show in an attempt to console the members, but the corps would never recover from the blow, especially when combined with the Opies departing the corps, as Sandra Opie moved from instructing to judging..

After the Opies left the corps, it never approached the brass excellence of the Sixties and early Seventies. Argonne dropped all the way to to thirty-third at the 1974 DCI championships. The corps improved to 20th in '75 and 18th in '76. but then slid to the lower level of open class in '77-'79. The corps then went inacrive for the next three seasons. Argonne returned as a Class A corps in 1983 qmd placed 10th in DCI Class A fimals. But, in 1984, Argonne was 19th of 25 corps in the newly named Division II prelims.

The Argonne Rebels Drum and Bugle Corps left the field after the 1984 season, although the organizations's Winter Guard International unit continued to compete until 1995. The organization continues in Great Bend to serve the alumni, since more than 3,000 youth from Great Bend and Barton County marched in the corps during its more than forty years of competition.

[Argonne Rebels; A History of Drum and Bugle Corps, 2002, Steve Vicker, editor; rec.arts.marching.drumcorps, aduncan@aol.com, 5/28/02; frankareme, 1/14/99; Drum Corps World,multiole issues; Kansas Humanities Council.]

Members (17)

Member Name	Section	Years Involved
Bridges, Gary	Snare	1977 to 1978
Brown, Mike	snare drum	1961 to 1968
Halbower, Leslie	1st year flag line, then drum line	1973 to 1976
Kott, Micheal	French Horn	1978 to 1979
Martin, Dallas	Mellophone	1972
Pommerenke, Roger	Color guard	1961 to 1962
Routh, Kelly	Color Guard (Flag)	1983 to 1984
Scheufler, "Emil"	soprano/mello/alto horn	1973 to 1979
Spatz, Jeff	Horn line - baritone	1975 to 1979
Stewart, Don	drumline	1975 to 1976
Stewart, Don	Snare	1975 to 1976
Straub, Larry	Drum Line	1971 to 1974
Tatman, Michael	percussion	1978
Tesh, Mary	Flag	1979
Waits, Gary	Drum Line Timpani	1979
Webster, Marc	Bugle	1970 to 1973
Williams Yeager, Joyce	flag	1974 to 1979

CORPS 24 items

Argonne Rebels

0 1 Photos

1955 1 Photos

1962 1 Photos

1963 2 Photos

1966 8 Photos

1968 5 Photos

1969 2 Photos

1971 7 Photos

1972 3 Photos

1973 1 Photos

1974 1 Photos

1975 1 Photos

1976 2 Photos

Members (17)