This is the Comanche, Texas High School marching band.  It was either 1955 or 1956 and I am in the color guard, the last person on the front row.

We practiced at 7 a.m. every morning for two weeks before school started.  When we could practice on the football field, we practiced marching 6 steps to 5 yards, which meant everybody stayed in line if they could keep up.

My dad designed the half time shows for the football games.  Nowadays there are computer programs for that.  We learned to play while marching, and had to memorize our parts so we didn't have to have those little clip-on music stands when we marched.

Carolyn Meyers, Quay Williams, Joyce McNutt, Bethel McDaniel, Patsy Atwood.  Color guard carried white wooden fake rifles and learned maneuvers with them.  I don't remember when we carried the flag, at parades I guess. 

Bill Atwood and his trumpet

This is my little brother.  He started playing the trumpet even earlier than I started playing the flute. (He was five, I was eleven.)  The first time he was supposed to play in public was in a skit at school where he was Little Boy Blue.

Well the night before Daddy taught him how to take his horn apart and clean it.  And somehow when he put it back together something was in the wrong place.  So when his cue came up, and he started to blow his horn, nothing came out.

Comanche High School Band

In 1952 our family moved back to Comanche, where my dad was born.  He became the Comanche High School Band director. Of course I continued in the band playing flute.

But in the marching band I wore a uniform with a short pleated skirt and carried a white fake rifle, in what was called the "Color Guard."

The three girls in the picture below are showing off their band letter jackets.  Left to right:  Patsy Atwood, Quay Williams, and Becky Baxter.