West Virginia University Mountaineer Marching Band - History

History

The band was formed in 1901 as an all-male ROTC Band with only eight members. The founding director, Walter Mestrezat, was a band leader during the Spanish-American War who led the First West Virginia Regiment in Cuba. The band's membership was exclusive to male ROTC members from its founding until 1925, when eleven non-ROTC males were allowed to join the band with limited benefits. Citing the favorable bias toward military band members the eleven formed a "rebel" band. To gain recognition as an official student organization, the group formed WVU's initial Omicron Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi. Through the efforts of WVU president Frank Trotter, the rebel and ROTC bands were successfully merged into the University Marching Band.

WVU's Military Department soon reached an agreement with the School of Music, allowing the band to be recognized as an official WVU music organization. Mestrezat increased the band's membership to approximately 70 members during his 37 year reign as the founding director. He retired in 1938, when Bernard McGregor became the band's second director.

The 1950s and 1960s began a new era in the marching band's history where it flourished largely under the direction of Larry Intravaia and Budd Udell. WVU's fight songs, "Fight Mountaineers" and "Hail West Virginia" were arranged for the band by Budd Udell during this era. They are the same arrangements the band plays today. The new songs and performances garnered the group significantly more attention than it had received in the past.

1971 began the 34-year era of Don Wilcox, who served as the director of the marching band from 1971 to 1997 and the Director of Bands from 1997 to 2005. During Wilcox's inaugural year the band was still limited to all-male membership and consisted of 88 members. The following year Wilcox endorsed women to become official members, marking the first time in the band's history (other than the World War II era) that woman were allowed to join the band. The 1970s saw one of the greatest periods of growth for the program through the efforts of its leadership and the band's association with the Mountaineer football team. As the football team became more renowned, the band garnered more exposure as well. The band performed at NFL games and two Peach Bowls in Atlanta. During the 1975 Peach Bowl, an announcer coined the phrase "The Pride of West Virginia", a term that would eventually become the band's official nickname.

After Don Wilcox's retirement in 2005, John Hendricks became WVU’s Director of Bands. Jay Drury, then assistant director, was named the 11th director of the WVU Marching Band. In 2008 the band grew to over 390 members, becoming the largest WVU Marching Band to date.