1962 Band Festival

The thought was to put together a slideshow of all our locals who were there that day in June for the Music Man Band Festival, commemorating that event.  George Von Wald assembling his band, for example.  Then the slideshow/story would be posted exactly 50 years to the date of the parade, historically and accurately marking the most significant Band Festival ever. But the only relevant photos to be found were celebratory, of actors like Robert Preston, Shirley Jones (she was nothing but beautiful), Ron Howard, or Buddy Hackett.  Nothing from the Class of '62.

Without all those local photos, the slideshow idea went away, and knowing the exact date for purposes of historical commemoration became a non-factor.

The NKHS queen candidate is also unknown but perhaps you can email or add a comment so as to amend that loss, because this writer obviously doesn't know.  Outside of how gorgeous Shirley Jones was, the basic personal band festival memory became that of wearing a pair of white Bermudas that day.  Whatever it takes.

If you dig around the internet long enough you will find much has been written and many photos posted, but little will satisfy the original goal for this post, all those "hometown" photos apparently being buried in treasure chests belonging to members of the Class of '62.  One article found online comprehensively reports, with photos, the transition from stage to film, Meredith Willson's hometown connections, all those actors, and other not-so-well-known facts like the $100,000 Warner Brothers gave to the city to offset some of their costs associated with the event.  Read that article here . . .

Outside of "76 Trombones" a popular song was "Ya Got Trouble" and this YouTube footage from the movie will hereby take the place of the slideshow that was a good idea without enough photos behind it to make it work.  Still it's all a good memory.