Black and white photo of the Maryville College Highlander Marching Band

A slow and steady return to glory: Memories of the Maryville College Highlander Band past sustain, propel a vision for its future

Jan. 27, 2023

When Dave Conklin ’65 first got his Maryville College band uniform, he felt like he’d been commissioned as an officer in the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The year was 1960, and Conklin was the third of three brothers to attend MC. Already, the Maryville College marching band — known as the Highlander Band — was impressive in number, Conklin recalls.

“I think there were 55 or 60 members in the band, and we wore kilts. My first uniform included a kilt, but as the efforts to grow the band were successful, we couldn’t get any more,” he says. “They were long out of production in Scotland, where we got them, so we had to add bearskin hats and red coats and striped pants for the men. When I left, there were probably 80 people in the band, and I was proud of what we did.”

Two decades later, however, financial hardship had taken its toll on Maryville College. Attendance dropped off, and the number of participants in the Highlander Marching Band dwindled to unsustainable levels. As Conklin continues his work with the Maryville College Office of Institutional Advancement and Dr. Eric Simpson to field a new version of the band, those memories, both good and bad, serve as both a blueprint and a cautionary tale.

“The last time I know of that there was a marching band at Maryville College was 1988,” said Simpson, associate professor of music and director of bands at MC. “Although there were some pep bands in that intervening period, the last time a Maryville College band did any marching was in 1988, and as far as I can tell, there were 19 students in that band. So it’s been a long time, and even then, it’s really hard to field a marching band with only 19 students.

“It’s important for everyone to understand that we won’t be out on the field until I’m confident that what we’re doing is going to be a really great reflection of Maryville College. We started with the Pep Band last year during football season, and having 30 students in the band for that was a really good jumping-off point. I think it’s a really important place to start.”

An MC history of joyful noise 

With roots dating back more than 200 years, Maryville College has always focused on academics, but boisterous celebration has long been a part of the school’s tradition. In the years following the Civil War, historian Jack Neely writes in the Maryville College Founding Story, undergrads living in the College’s ruined buildings in downtown Maryville still managed to enjoy “a rare bohemian camaraderie. ‘The Indian Braves of Radical Row,’ as they called themselves, were known for waking Maryvillians with a ‘war whoop’ that ‘rang out on the still breezes of the night’ and other ‘blood-curling traditions.”

At the end of the College’s first 100 years, more elegant, and mellifluous, celebrations were common, and by 1909, the “M.C. Cornet Band” was identified in the College’s yearbook as performing “at ball games and other public meetings, thereby adding much to the pleasure and enthusiasm of these occasions.”

Although the Division of Fine Arts wasn’t established until the Fall of 1936, College records identify an orchestra, choral groups, and various quartets and bands, including one that “furnished music for games, and occasionally accompanied the teams on trips,” according to the MC 1920-21 Catalog.

With the organization of Fine Arts, music ensembles could then be counted as college credit, and the first official band leaders were named: Director Ralph Colbert, Drum Major Dick Woodring ’40 and Blazer McCall ’38, sponsor. According to an edition of The Highland Echo student newspaper at the time, “the band has increased to 35 members this year and the school is seriously considering buying uniforms.” By 1938, the band performed regularly at football games and even gave “a spring moonlight concert at the amphitheater in the College Woods.”

Colbert remained director through 1942, and while World War II saw so many undergrads depart for duty that the football seasons of 1943-46 were canceled, the band was brought into a new era by W. Curtis Hughes, director from 1948-1953. That fall, Jane Hussey Fraelich ’57 came to campus as a first-year band student.

“One big, exciting adventure in my first year was getting measured for new band uniforms,” she recalls in a recent letter accompanying a donation to the College’s current fundraising efforts. “If I remember correctly, my number was 14. Then the wait for the Haye plaid kilts to come from Scotland. How spiffy these wool outfits would be, even if sometimes they would be too hot!”

Upon their arrival, she continues, students had to be instructed on how to assemble their uniforms and how to march in them.

“One does not march in a kilt,” she writes. “One walks a certain way with a certain swing move so the kilt moves but nothing shows from underneath … that took much practice, since most of us had been fast marchers, with toe down and knee up. Kilt bands move slowly and no knee upping. We practiced, we laughed and finally we passed muster!”

An integral part of the MC experience 

Other directors came and went, and by the time the late Robert Hassall ’58 came to MC, the band was flourishing under the directorship of Ralph Moore. Hassall recalled in a donation letter before his death last year just how challenging marching in a kilt could be during a parade in downtown Maryville.

“Unfortunately, I forgot to tie tightly the drawstring,” he wrote. “The music was playing, and I felt I might be losing something! To this day, I’m grateful for the trombone player directly behind me. He (or she) noticed the concern I was having. As soon as the music stopped and we continued to march, I felt a slight tug of the trombone to my kilt. I did ‘tighten up,’ and I did survive the fears of losing my confidence of the day!”

By the time Conklin arrived at Maryville College in 1960, the band — under the leadership of Director John Roberts that fall — numbered 50 to 60 students, he recalled, and the Scots football squad finished the season strong enough to earn a bowl bid — to the one and only Rocket Bowl in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1961.

“The band went down with the team, and to say it had a meager crowd would be an understatement,” Conklin says with a laugh. “There weren’t many people there at all, but the team won, and we went out at halftime to perform, and we were really proud of going down there. That was a unique experience because Maryville College had only been to a bowl game once before.”

(The Scots lost 31-6 in the 1947 Tangerine Bowl to the Catawba College Indians.)

The 1960s were prosperous times for the band, with an April 1966 report in the Maryville College Bulletin noting that the “Maryville College Highlander Band … will be playing concerts in Atlanta area high schools” during a three-day excursion, including potential dates at professional sporting events in the city. The band, it seemed, was in demand as a performance unit.

But by the 1970s, the glory days of the Highlander Marching Band were beginning to fade. Records are unclear whether the College was able to field a band for the 1975-76 football season, and the 1976-77 team was serenaded solely by a pep band. Still, the band meant a great deal to athletes, students and the musicians themselves. In fact, Bill Flurkey ’73 and Debbie Graham Flurkey ’73 say that without their experiences, they may have never fallen in love or celebrated 50 years of marriage last December.

“Marching band, concert band, band tours and practice three times a week for four years made for long hours but good times,” they write. “(We) married at Christmas of senior year.”

By the end of that decade, the band had dwindled to a few small ensembles, and throughout the 1980s, a small marching band, never amounting to more than two dozen members, did its best to stoke the flames of Scottish enthusiasm before the 1988-89 season brought an end to a longstanding tradition.

At least until now.

A new vision for the band program 

Despite its physical absence, the Highlander Marching Band has never faded from memory. In a 1991 edition of The Highland Echo, Dr. Daniel Taddie, chair of Fine Arts at the time, put it succinctly:

“A marching band requires a lot of people playing the right distribution of instruments, and we simply do not have enough people … there are no plans for a marching band. We do not have the resources to do it in the right way; we would rather not do it at all than do it halfway.”

For years, the idea of resurrecting a marching band presented a conundrum: How, administrators and alumni wondered, could students be recruited to perform in an ensemble that didn’t exist, and how could a band be sustained in a way that ensured its permanence as part of MC culture?

“In the 1980s, enrollment dropped, and there was no critical mass of people to build a band,” Conklin says. “That’s when the band kind of dissolved, and it’s hard to get it back unless you get some students coming in who want to be in a band and are committed to it, which Eric has been working on for years now. I think that’s why it’s going to happen, because we all remember the lean years.

“They were very lean, so much so that they don’t even have a uniform left in the College’s archives. All those plaid kilts disappeared, and that’s indicative of the way things were going with the band back then. But we’ve raised $160,000 of the $175,000 we need to get the band going again, so its return is practically guaranteed when the timing is right.”

Simpson organized the Tartanband in 2016 as a student ensemble. When Dr. Bryan F. Coker was installed as president of Maryville College in 2020, a meeting with Conklin laid the foundation for what will eventually become the new Highlander Marching Band.

“After he’d been there for three or four months, my wife and I came over to meet with Dr. Coker,” Conklin says. “I mentioned the band, and I told him I’d been in it back when I was a student, and the next thing I know, he was asking me to get into this fundraising campaign. He made it very hard to say no! With Dr. Coker’s emphasis on it, and Eric’s ability to make it happen, the band will be back. I feel confident of that.”

Building on momentum

The fundraising campaign, organized through the Office of Institutional Advancement, began with a goal of $175,000 to cover uniforms, instruments and other start-up costs for the marching band. At the same time, Simpson was tasked with gauging student interest by transforming Tartanband into the Maryville College Pep Band. During Homecoming 2021, the MC Pep Band made its debut, and thanks to the work of Advancement personnel and Conklin’s advocacy, alumni with fond memories of the Highlander Marching Band have stepped up to meet the initial fundraising goal.

“We need uniforms, we need instruments, and we need enough to hopefully support a band of 60 to 70 people,” Conklin says. “Eric is working on reviving interest among students, and we’re really close to reaching our goal. The next step is to set up an endowment that will provide annual funding, so that the marching band is a permanent part of life at Maryville College again.”

Already, the efforts of the pep band have made a noticeable difference in the energy and fan enthusiasm at Scots football and basketball games. The students themselves have bonded over band activities, Simpson said, and the greater visibility will hopefully aid in recruitment efforts.

“I think the potential is there, but I also know that the growth of the pep band is related to the enrollment of the college as a whole,” Simpson said. “The preparation I did with the ensemble is the same I’ve done with any of the groups I’ve worked with in the last seven years — and that’s to play professionally and put a product out there that the College can be proud of.

“Right now, the alumni who are supporting it seem to be really supportive but also trust that I know what I’m doing, and that we’ll be out on the field when it’s time to be out on the field.”

In the meantime, opportunities to watch and hear the Tartanband, as its own ensemble or in its capacity as a pep band, abound this semester: Feb. 7 in the Cooper Athletic Center for a Scots basketball doubleheader; April 13 for a spring concert; and various events that call for musical entertainment, including the College’s annual Commencement exercise in May.

Prospective students interested in applying for a Fine Arts scholarship can sign up now for auditions, which will take place on campus (or via Zoom, for those unable to travel) on Jan. 28, Feb. 11 and Feb. 18. Contact the Office of Admissions at admissions@maryvillecollege.edu for more information.

For more information about contributing to the band program, please contact Diana Canacaris, director of major gifts, at 865-981-8198 or diana.canacaris@maryvillecollege.edu. Donations can be spread out across three years, Conklin added, and other options are available.

Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders, to study everything, so that they are prepared for anything — to address any problem, engage with any audience and launch successful careers right away. Located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, Maryville College offers nearly 1,200  students from around the world both the beauty of a rural setting and the advantages of an urban center, as well as more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last. Today, our 10,000 alumni are living life strong of mind and brave of heart and are prepared, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”