Looking Back with Dave Harrison By Kathy Keefer Fink David Paul Harrison was born in 1944 in Bellaire, Ohio to Rev. Marion C. Harrison, a United Church of Christ minister, and his wife Ruth. His siblings at the time included older brother Marion, Jr.; sister Marcia; and later, a little brother Dale. The Harrison family moved to Dayton in the summer of 1953, where Dave attended Van Cleve Elementary School. While at Van Cleve, he was a dedicated member of the Boy Scouts of America, eventually earning the rank of Eagle Scout; and where he also learned to play the trombone. His choice of the trombone is quite a story. “It was Christmas, sometime in the late 40’s,” Dave says, “and there was a guy selling kazoos on the street outside of Higbee’s department store in Cleveland. He was playing a little toy kazoo in the shape of a trombone. I thought it was the neatest thing. You know, you don’t really play a kazoo, you just blow into it while humming. But that’s how I decided I wanted to play the trombone. It’s crazy.” 1958-62 After completing the 8th grade at Van Cleve in the spring of 1958, Dave spent eight weeks at a summer camp in Maine. As a result, he missed Colonel White’s very first band camp at Earlham College, and when school began, he was an alternate in the marching band directed by “Mr. D,” Jack A. DeVelbiss. “My first involvement with the Little Colonels was at a football game at Welcome Stadium,” Dave remembers. “Since I wasn’t performing with the band during the half-time show, I was told to guard the Little Colonel purses sitting on the folding chairs. During the half-time show, some boys jumped the railing and grabbed a purse. Because I saw it happen, I was later asked to identify them.” And so began Dave’s long odyssey with the Little Colonels, one he could have scarcely imagined at the time. As the years progressed, Dave became increasingly more involved in all the instrumental groups in CW’s music department. In his senior year, he was selected as Student Director, and was also chosen by his fellow band members as the 1962 recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award “. . . for outstanding achievement and interest in instrumental music . . . loyalty and cooperation . . . and those high qualities of conduct which instrumental music strives to impart.” Upon graduation in 1962, he enrolled at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, where he majored in music education. It was a fitting choice for Dave, since he had enjoyed such a successful high school musical career, and had come to appreciate what he had learned from Jack DeVelbiss. Dave recalls, “I had so much admiration and respect for Mr. D, I wanted to be just like him.” 1962-66 During his college years in Cincinnati, he kept in close contact with the DeVelbiss family. And since his own family had moved to Grandville, Michigan in 1964, Dave often stayed at the DeVelbiss home on week-ends, while teaching private lessons or playing in local bands in the Dayton area. He became so much a part of their family that the DeVelbiss kids referred to him as their Uncle Charlie. Then in the summer of 1963, Mr. D was looking for a new Little Colonel director for band camp to replace Dick Patzel who could no longer continue in that position He didn’t have to look any farther than his own living room. Dave was selected. After overcoming his self-doubts, he admitted he was excited about the job. He served as the Little Colonel director at band camp in the summers of ’63, ’64, and ‘65, spending everyday on the practice field with the block, perfecting routines and polishing techniques. While only two years older than the senior Colonels at the time, Mr. D, Dave, and the Colonels all realized the importance of keeping a professional working relationship between the director and the block. He was always addressed as Mr. Harrison, but that didn’t keep the girls from good-naturedly kidding him from time to time - respectfully, of course. That first summer the Colonels nicknamed him “Tootsie Roll”, because that was his expression, instead of “Cheese!” to remind the girls to smile while performing. And anytime Dave rode the Colonel bus, it was a sure bet the girls would eventually break into song with their version of “Harrigan” from Yankee Doodle Dandy - with a little liberty in the spelling: “H-A-double R-I-S-O-N spells Harrison! Harrison!” Without fail, Dave would blush and shake his head, and the Colonels would break into applause and laughter. “How sweet it is!” was his response after a successful performance. Dave had become a real part of Mr. D’s staff. As a former CW band member, Dave thought he knew and understood the Little Colonels, but says today, “No one could really know them, until you’d worked with them all those long, hot days at band camp. All these years later, I can still remember the tremendous pride, work ethic and the special “culture” of the Little Colonels. You really had to experience it to know what it was: like weigh-ins, salt tablets and the smell of Ben Gay . . . officer tryouts, and the “tapping” ceremony of the girls selected to lead the unit . . . the suspense and excitement of being chosen . . . the formation of the new block each year . . . riding the Colonel bus . . . singing the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ while crossing the Stewart Street bridge before a game. Things like that. It can never happen again. Nor, can it ever be taken from our memories, or from our hearts. It was, and still is, magical. It’s what still draws us together today and will draw us together on October 23rd.” Dave also accompanied the band and Colonels to the Detroit Lions’/San Francisco 49ers’ game in Detroit in December of 1964. It was the highest profile performance in which any Colonel White band and Little Colonel unit had ever participated. An audience of millions saw the half-time show on TV. “What an amazing experience! Those who were on that trip know what I mean,” he says. 1966-71 Then in the spring of 1966, Mr. D was offered the opportunity to direct the Living Arts Center in downtown Dayton. With his departure, came an opening for a new band director at Colonel White. Dave graduated from Cincinnati in June of ‘66, applied for the job and became the second director in the school’s history. He recalls, “It was a dream come true, and I even got paid to do it!” That summer at band camp, his fiancée, Nancy Farley, served as his personal secretary. Later that year, he and Nancy were married on November 25th, because it was Dave’s first weekend without a half-time show! He claims he did briefly contemplate getting married on the field at Welcome Stadium during half-time with the band and Little Colonels present, but thought Nancy might consider a church wedding more appropriate. As CW’s new director, Dave called on the friendships he’d made at band camp. “Stan Flowers was a mechanical engineer, and a long time friend of the DeVelbisses,” Dave recalls. “When I became director at Colonel White, Stan helped me in many ways. And especially in later years when the “drum corps” style became popular. We judged shows together for years. Also, Stan was so inspired by the Little Colonels that he modeled a younger girls’ drill team after them, and named them the Little Majors. As the group grew older, they transformed themselves into the Little Rangers.” Another friend, Keith Clark, was Mr. D’s student teacher from Miami University, who came to band camp in ’64 and went to Detroit with everyone that December. Keith and Dave would work closely together in the years to come when they both were high school music directors in Dayton - Keith at Belmont and Dave at Colonel White. “Every year, when Colonel White played Belmont in football,” Dave says, “Keith and I would design the half-time show together, with both bands and both drill teams on the field at the same time for the entire 15 minutes. We always did a show with a patriotic theme, and we’d borrow the American flags from all the homerooms at Belmont and Colonel White to do it. It was really something.” One year, they were rehearsing the CW/Belmont show at DeWeese Parkway, and Dave had rented a van to haul all the flags, equipment, and instruments to the field. “Well, there had been a lot of rain, and it was really muddy. I had driven the van across to the other side of the field, and parked it. I was up on top of the van to watch the practice, and when I went to jump down, my coat got caught on the open door of the van and I fell off and landed on my shoulder – really hurt it. Then we realized the van was stuck in the mud, so we had to call a wrecker. The wrecker came and it got stuck, and we had to call another wrecker to get the first wrecker, and the van, out of the mud,” laughs Dave. Fortunately, Keith and some other staff members were still there, but just as fortunately for Dave, the students had all gone home. Sadly, his friend Keith died a few years later from cancer, at the very young age of 38. Dave was one of his pall bearers. Elsewhere in the music department, traditions started by Jack DeVelbiss continued under Dave’s direction. He produced the musicals The King and I in 1968, and Lil’ Abner in 1970. In 1967 and 1969, he directed the Colonel White Capers - a spring variety show featuring individual vocal and dance numbers. Also in ’69, the Little Colonels took first place in the Greater Dayton Drill Team Invitational, with Marita Brookley as head Colonel. Now, as he looks back on those years as a mere 22-year-old, Dave says he was handed a lot of responsibility with the expectation of producing great results. He found it difficult and awkward to be equals with his former high school teachers, but admits it was a wonderful opportunity to work closely with and learn from people like Carol Bright Gillette Walters, vocal music; Tom Bradrick and Bing Davis, art; Jim Payne, drama; Kathy Armstrong, physical education teacher and band camp staff member; and Jim Eby, athletic director. Dave says, “These faculty members really helped me succeed.” 1971-1979 In 1971, Dave received his master’s degree in music education from Miami University. His thesis, “A Study of Seven Successful Secondary Music Programs in Small Cities and Suburbs in Western Ohio and Eastern Indiana” became the stepping stone to his next job. He left Colonel White in the spring of that year to become the assistant director at Trotwood-Madison, which had a much larger music department than Colonel White. In May of 1973, Dave was asked by Mr. D to lead the Trotwood-Madison band at the dedication of Sinclair Community College’s new home in downtown Dayton. It was a proud moment for Dave, whose relationship with Mr. D had come full circle from student to band director. In 1977, he moved into the top slot at Trotwood when director Ward Zerkle retired. But perhaps Dave’s most memorable time at TM came in 1978, when the band and Rockettes drill team were invited to participate in the National Pageant of Bands in Phoenix, Arizona. It fell to Dave and the music parents to come up with ways to raise money for the trip. Along with the usual fundraisers, was Dave’s idea of “pole sitting” in a custom-built band wagon, atop a telephone pole, over Labor Day Weekend. A music parent who worked for the phone company made the arrangements, and Dave soon found himself perched high above the crowd in Madison Park that weekend. People pledged all sorts of money for the stunt, and some even paid to have the Trotwood fire department lift them up to shake Dave’s hand. This fundraiser and others helped raise more than $100,000 to charter a plane and send the band and drill team, uniforms and instruments, and staff and chaperones to Arizona. The school took second place in the pageant on December 16th, and the parade segment was shown on national television on New Year’s Day before the Fiesta Bowl. Dave says, “It was my Detroit!” Later that year, and much to Dave’s surprise, he was offered the music director’s position at Pleasant Valley High School, a wealthy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. But at that point in his life, he admits he was worn out, and his creativity tapped. “It was getting more and more complicated every year to run a music department, and the culture of bands was such that you were expected to get bigger and better each year. Many schools were even hiring outsiders to work with their different groups, like the drill teams. As I said then, ‘I was fight songed and alma matered out.’ And I was.” Dave admits he has wondered from time to time, what it might have been like to take that job, but says he has no regrets. He’s been a successful business man now for 33 years. Today, Dave’s odyssey with the Little Colonels continues, and this time age doesn’t matter. Welcome back, Dave, we’re glad you’re here. “Tootsie Roll!” The Harrison family includes a son, Chris; and two grandsons, Chris, 17, and C. J., 15. Dave and Nancy make their home in Springboro, Ohio. Mr. Harrison’s schedule for the Little Colonels, 1968 Thanks to Karen Bales Snell, ’68, for sharing this precious memory.

Looking Back with Dave Harrison

By Kathy Keefer Fink

David Paul Harrison was born in 1944 in Bellaire, Ohio to Rev. Marion C. Harrison, a United Church of Christ minister, and his wife Ruth. His siblings at the time included older brother Marion, Jr.; sister Marcia; and later, a little brother Dale.

The Harrison family moved to Dayton in the summer of 1953, where Dave attended Van Cleve Elementary School. While at Van Cleve, he was a dedicated member of the Boy Scouts of America, eventually earning the rank of Eagle Scout; and where he also learned to play the trombone. His choice of the trombone is quite a story.

“It was Christmas, sometime in the late 40’s,” Dave says, “and there was a guy selling kazoos on the street outside of Higbee’s department store in Cleveland. He was playing a little toy kazoo in the shape of a trombone. I thought it was the neatest thing. You know, you don’t really play a kazoo, you just blow into it while humming. But that’s how I decided I wanted to play the trombone. It’s crazy.”

1958-62

After completing the 8th grade at Van Cleve in the spring of 1958, Dave spent eight weeks at a summer camp in Maine. As a result, he missed Colonel White’s very first band camp at Earlham College, and when school began, he was an alternate in the marching band directed by “Mr. D,” Jack A. DeVelbiss.

“My first involvement with the Little Colonels was at a football game at Welcome Stadium,” Dave remembers. “Since I wasn’t performing with the band during the half-time show, I was told to guard the Little Colonel purses sitting on the folding chairs. During the half-time show, some boys jumped the railing and grabbed a purse. Because I saw it happen, I was later asked to identify them.” And so began Dave’s long odyssey with the Little Colonels, one he could have scarcely imagined at the time.

As the years progressed, Dave became increasingly more involved in all the instrumental groups in CW’s music department. In his senior year, he was selected as Student Director, and was also chosen by his fellow band members as the 1962 recipient of the John Philip Sousa Band Award

“. . . for outstanding achievement and interest in instrumental music . . . loyalty and cooperation . . . and those high qualities of conduct which instrumental music strives to impart.”

Upon graduation in 1962, he enrolled at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, where he majored in music education. It was a fitting choice for Dave, since he had enjoyed such a successful high school musical career, and had come to appreciate what he had learned from Jack DeVelbiss. Dave recalls, “I had so much admiration and respect for Mr. D, I wanted to be just like him.”

1962-66

During his college years in Cincinnati, he kept in close contact with the DeVelbiss family. And since his own family had moved to Grandville, Michigan in 1964, Dave often stayed at the DeVelbiss home on week-ends, while teaching private lessons or playing in local bands in the Dayton area. He became so much a part of their family that the DeVelbiss kids referred to him as their Uncle Charlie.

Then in the summer of 1963, Mr. D was looking for a new Little Colonel director for band camp to replace Dick Patzel who could no longer continue in that position He didn’t have to look any farther than his own living room. Dave was selected. After overcoming his self-doubts, he admitted he was excited about the job.

He served as the Little Colonel director at band camp in the summers of ’63, ’64, and ‘65, spending everyday on the practice field with the block, perfecting routines and polishing techniques. While only two years older than the senior Colonels at the time, Mr. D, Dave, and the Colonels all realized the importance of keeping a professional working relationship between the director and the block. He was always addressed as Mr. Harrison, but that didn’t keep the girls from good-naturedly kidding him from time to time - respectfully, of course.

That first summer the Colonels nicknamed him “Tootsie Roll”, because that was his expression, instead of “Cheese!” to remind the girls to smile while performing. And anytime Dave rode the Colonel bus, it was a sure bet the girls would eventually break into song with their version of “Harrigan” from Yankee Doodle Dandy - with a little liberty in the spelling: “H-A-double R-I-S-O-N spells Harrison! Harrison!” Without fail, Dave would blush and shake his head, and the Colonels would break into applause and laughter. “How sweet it is!” was his response after a successful performance. Dave had become a real part of Mr. D’s staff.

As a former CW band member, Dave thought he knew and understood the Little Colonels, but says today, “No one could really know them, until you’d worked with them all those long, hot days at band camp. All these years later, I can still remember the tremendous pride, work ethic and the special “culture” of the Little Colonels. You really had to experience it to know what it was: like weigh-ins, salt tablets and the smell of Ben Gay . . . officer tryouts, and the “tapping” ceremony of the girls selected to lead the unit . . . the suspense and excitement of being chosen . . . the formation of the new block each year . . . riding the Colonel bus . . . singing the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ while crossing the Stewart Street bridge before a game. Things like that. It can never happen again. Nor, can it ever be taken from our memories, or from our hearts. It was, and still is, magical. It’s what still draws us together today and will draw us together on October 23rd.”

Dave also accompanied the band and Colonels to the Detroit Lions’/San Francisco 49ers’ game in Detroit in December of 1964. It was the highest profile performance in which any Colonel White band and Little Colonel unit had ever participated. An audience of millions saw the half-time show on TV. “What an amazing experience! Those who were on that trip know what I mean,” he says.

1966-71

Then in the spring of 1966, Mr. D was offered the opportunity to direct the Living Arts Center in downtown Dayton. With his departure, came an opening for a new band director at Colonel White. Dave graduated from Cincinnati in June of ‘66, applied for the job and became the second director in the school’s history. He recalls, “It was a dream come true, and I even got paid to do it!”

That summer at band camp, his fiancée, Nancy Farley, served as his personal secretary. Later that year, he and Nancy were married on November 25th, because it was Dave’s first weekend without a half-time show! He claims he did briefly contemplate getting married on the field at Welcome Stadium during half-time with the band and Little Colonels present, but thought Nancy might consider a church wedding more appropriate.

As CW’s new director, Dave called on the friendships he’d made at band camp. “Stan Flowers was a mechanical engineer, and a long time friend of the DeVelbisses,” Dave recalls. “When I became director at Colonel White, Stan helped me in many ways. And especially in later years when the “drum corps” style became popular. We judged shows together for years. Also, Stan was so inspired by the Little Colonels that he modeled a younger girls’ drill team after them, and named them the Little Majors. As the group grew older, they transformed themselves into the Little Rangers.”

Another friend, Keith Clark, was Mr. D’s student teacher from Miami University, who came to band camp in ’64 and went to Detroit with everyone that December. Keith and Dave would work closely together in the years to come when they both were high school music directors in Dayton - Keith at Belmont and Dave at Colonel White.

“Every year, when Colonel White played Belmont in football,” Dave says, “Keith and I would design the half-time show together, with both bands and both drill teams on the field at the same time for the entire 15 minutes. We always did a show with a patriotic theme, and we’d borrow the American flags from all the homerooms at Belmont and Colonel White to do it. It was really something.”

One year, they were rehearsing the CW/Belmont show at DeWeese Parkway, and Dave had rented a van to haul all the flags, equipment, and instruments to the field. “Well, there had been a lot of rain, and it was really muddy. I had driven the van across to the other side of the field, and parked it. I was up on top of the van to watch the practice, and when I went to jump down, my coat got caught on the open door of the van and I fell off and landed on my shoulder – really hurt it. Then we realized the van was stuck in the mud, so we had to call a wrecker. The wrecker came and it got stuck, and we had to call another wrecker to get the first wrecker, and the van, out of the mud,” laughs Dave. Fortunately, Keith and some other staff members were still there, but just as fortunately for Dave, the students had all gone home. Sadly, his friend Keith died a few years later from cancer, at the very young age of 38. Dave was one of his pall bearers.

Elsewhere in the music department, traditions started by Jack DeVelbiss continued under Dave’s direction. He produced the musicals The King and I in 1968, and Lil’ Abner in 1970. In 1967 and 1969, he directed the Colonel White Capers - a spring variety show featuring individual vocal and dance numbers. Also in ’69, the Little Colonels took first place in the Greater Dayton Drill Team Invitational, with Marita Brookley as head Colonel.

Now, as he looks back on those years as a mere 22-year-old, Dave says he was handed a lot of responsibility with the expectation of producing great results. He found it difficult and awkward to be equals with his former high school teachers, but admits it was a wonderful opportunity to work closely with and learn from people like Carol Bright Gillette Walters, vocal music; Tom Bradrick and Bing Davis, art; Jim Payne, drama; Kathy Armstrong, physical education teacher and band camp staff member; and Jim Eby, athletic director. Dave says, “These faculty members really helped me succeed.”

1971-1979

In 1971, Dave received his master’s degree in music education from Miami University. His thesis, “A Study of Seven Successful Secondary Music Programs in Small Cities and Suburbs in Western Ohio and Eastern Indiana” became the stepping stone to his next job. He left Colonel White in the spring of that year to become the assistant director at Trotwood-Madison, which had a much larger music department than Colonel White.

In May of 1973, Dave was asked by Mr. D to lead the Trotwood-Madison band at the dedication of Sinclair Community College’s new home in downtown Dayton. It was a proud moment for Dave, whose relationship with Mr. D had come full circle from student to band director. In 1977, he moved into the top slot at Trotwood when director Ward Zerkle retired.

But perhaps Dave’s most memorable time at TM came in 1978, when the band and Rockettes drill team were invited to participate in the National Pageant of Bands in Phoenix, Arizona. It fell to Dave and the music parents to come up with ways to raise money for the trip. Along with the usual fundraisers, was Dave’s idea of “pole sitting” in a custom-built band wagon, atop a telephone pole, over Labor Day Weekend. A music parent who worked for the phone company made the arrangements, and Dave soon found himself perched high above the crowd in Madison Park that weekend. People pledged all sorts of money for the stunt, and some even paid to have the Trotwood fire department lift them up to shake Dave’s hand. This fundraiser and others helped raise more than $100,000 to charter a plane and send the band and drill team, uniforms and instruments, and staff and chaperones to Arizona. The school took second place in the pageant on December 16th, and the parade segment was shown on national television on New Year’s Day before the Fiesta Bowl. Dave says, “It was my Detroit!”

Later that year, and much to Dave’s surprise, he was offered the music director’s position at Pleasant Valley High School, a wealthy suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. But at that point in his life, he admits he was worn out, and his creativity tapped. “It was getting more and more complicated every year to run a music department, and the culture of bands was such that you were expected to get bigger and better each year. Many schools were even hiring outsiders to work with their different groups, like the drill teams. As I said then, ‘I was fight songed and alma matered out.’ And I was.” Dave admits he has wondered from time to time, what it might have been like to take that job, but says he has no regrets. He’s been a successful business man now for 33 years.

Today, Dave’s odyssey with the Little Colonels continues, and this time age doesn’t matter. Welcome back, Dave, we’re glad you’re here. “Tootsie Roll!”

The Harrison family includes a son, Chris; and two grandsons, Chris, 17, and C. J., 15. Dave and Nancy make their home in Springboro, Ohio.

Mr. Harrison’s schedule for the Little Colonels, 1968

Thanks to Karen Bales Snell, ’68, for sharing this precious memory.