History
In the Fall of 1920, Mr. Ralph A. Van Wye, a student in the college of Engineering, had just returned to the University of Cincinnati after a tour of duty in the US Army during World War I as an Army Bandsmen. At the time, ROTC was compulsory for all male students at the University of Cincinnati. Since Mr. Van Wye had just completed two years of Army service, he did not feel obligated to continue as a member of ROTC on campus, requesting to have his requirement waived. However, when the Commandant saw that he was an Army Bandsmen, he told Mr. Van Wye that he was just the man they needed. They wanted to organize an ROTC band, but had no one available to serve as bandmaster. Rather than being excused from ROTC, Mr. Van Wye was appointed as bandmaster to the first University of Cincinnati ROTC band. That fall Mr. Ralph A. Van Wye held his first rehearsal in one of the laboratories in the College of Engineering. Eight members were in attendance.
Since its humble beginnings in 1920, the University of Cincinnati Bearcat Band has grown to feature 175 members across three major bands and numerous smaller ensembles. The UC Bearcat Band has had the honor of performing at numerous sporting events, including the 1975 World Series and 2009 Orange Bowl.
The UC Bearcat Band has seen 13 band directors.
- 1920 - 1923: Mr. Ralph Van Wye
- 1923 - 1929: Sgt. Victor Norling
- 1929 - 1947: Mr. Merrill B. Van Pelt
- 1947 - 1949: Mr. Clarence E. Mills
- 1949 - 1954: Mr. Robert Hamilton
- 1954 - 1970: Dr. Roy Robert Hornyak
- 1970 - 1972: Dr. Robert Wojciak
- 1972 - 1973: Mr. Harry McTerry
- 1973 - 1977: Prof. Woodrow Hodges
- 1977 - 1979: Prof. Glenn Richter
- 1979 - 1993: Dr. Terence G. Milligan
- 1993 - 1994: Mr. Matthew McInturf
- 1994 - Present: Dr. Terren L. Frenz, Sr.
Read more about this topic: University Of Cincinnati Bearcat Bands
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)