School officials of Bellwood-Antis School District caught a brief glimpse of what the Blue Devils band will look like in 2003-04.
At last evening’s regularly scheduled board meeting, junior trumpeter Chris Gummo donned the new uniform and modeled the duds in hopes of persuading the board of directors to begin advertising bids.
“We’re really excited about the new look,” said B-A Band Director Greg Roberts. “I designed the look myself and showed it to the kids. They really like what they saw and we decided to go with this specific look.”
Roberts said he modeled the design of the uniforms from Drum Corp groups that perform competitively, mostly in the larger cities. He explained these groups usually contain members ranging in age from 18-21.
“I wanted these uniforms to look effective, visually, on the field,” said Roberts. “What we’re trying to do is give the appearance of a Drum Corp unit, only at a high school level.”
In all, there will be 145 uniforms ordered. These include 95 for the marching band, five for the drum majors, 25 for the color guard and 20 for the majorettes.
As shown in the accompanying photo, the marching band uniforms will consist of entirely black slacks and a black coat trimmed with royal blue trim. It will also have gold and black sequins on the uniform that can be interchanged with other colors. Black shoes will also be worn.
The drum major uniforms will be all black with some silver and blue sequins.
“We really liked these colors,” said Roberts. “We wanted something that was going to stand out because we are a competitive band. This is going to be a lot different than the regular white coats that were trimmed in yellow and blue that everyone is so used to. It’s an improvement and we’re looking forward to seeing what they look like all together out on the field.”
Roberts also noted in his presentation the drum majors and marching band members will wear hats with a 10-inch plume, slightly taller than the normal 8-inch plume on most uniforms.
The color guard and majorettes will also wear black slacks and black shoes. Yellow coats with blue sequins trim will be worn by the color guard and the majorettes will wear white coats with blue sequins.
The board unanimously approved advertising the bids, but Roberts said he already has a company chosen that he believes will do the best job and will also submit the lowest bid.
“We’ve worked with this company in the past and the work it does is tremendous,” he said.
Costs for the new uniforms will be about $34,000. The Bellwood-Antis Band Parents will provide half the funds and the district will match to provide the other 50-percent.
The uniforms should be in the possession of the district no later than June.
So what becomes of the old uniforms?
They’ll be given to the middle school band.
“We receive new uniforms about every ten years,” said Roberts. “But the ones we have now are in really good shape. Unlike a lot of other districts, we don’t allow the students to take their uniforms home. This keeps them in pretty good shape.”
