Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps

The Carolina Crown organization was founded in 1988 as the Charlotte Drum Corps Association, a group of local drum corps fans who gathered on an irregular basis to talk about drum corps and watch drum corps video. After organizing themselves with Bill Loelius as president, Kevin Smith as vice president, and Luanne Bialecki as Secretary-Treasurer, the group hosted two drum corps shows, Southern Gold Classic at Davidson College and NightBEAT at Charlotte's Memorial Stadium. Southern Gold Classic drew a small audience and lost money. NightBEAT was much better attended, but the group was unable to pay the stadium rental. When NightBEAT Chairperson Doug Madar, Bill Loelius, and Kevin Smith met with Charlotte Parks & Recreation Department Superintendent Marvin Billups to discuss working out some sort of payment schedule, they were surprised when Billups not only wrote off the bill for the 1988 NightBEAT but offered the Department's sponsorship for future shows. In 1989, a gift of $1000 was offered by the Queen City Optimists with the proviso that the organization start a performance group; after discussions initially centered on starting a drumline, Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps was born.[2][3][4]

After the corps bought a complete set of drums from a defunct drum and bugle corps only to discover that they were seriously damaged, John Cummings of Ludwig Drums offered to repair the drums as part of an informal sponsorship of the corps. The name Carolina Crown was adopted to recognize the groups' desire to represent the Carolinas region while still recognizing Charlotte, the Queen City, which has a crown in its logo. The leadership group met, in the fall of 1989, with several young band directors who were also alumni of Suncoast Sound, Spirit of Atlanta, and the Madison Scouts drum and bugle corps to tell them of their efforts to start a new local corps. From this group, Don Taylor, Cecil Adderley, Bill Register, and Van Mathews volunteered to be the corps' first instructors. After locating and purchasing the horns of the defunct California Dons, Carolina Crown began recruiting members. The corps also formed a partnership with the Mecklenburg Council of the Boy Scouts of America as Explorer Post #588, which aided them in finding school space for auditions and practices.[2][3][4]

In 1990, fielding a corps of only sixty-one members, Carolina Crown elected to compete in the Open Class (now known as World Class) in DCI. However, not only was the corps out-classed by the other, larger corps in Open Class, but it was also bested in DCI prelims by seven corps that had advanced from Classes A and A60, finishing thirty-third of 33 corps at their first DCI World Championships in Buffalo.[5] In 1991, the corps dropped down to Class A. At the DCI Championships in Dallas, Carolina Crown finished in second place in Class A and advanced to Open Class prelims, where they placed twenty-fifth, earning DCI Associate membership. Carolina Crown was third in the 1992 Division II championship in Whitewater, Wisconsin, once more finishing in twenty-fifth place in Division I (which had been renamed from Open Class) prelims in Madison, Wisconsin. At the 1993 DCI Championships in Jackson, Mississippi, Carolina Crown won the Division II Championship title and finished in twenty-first place in Division I prelims.[2][3][4]

After winning Division II in 1993, Carolina Crown opted to compete exclusively in Division I in 1994. That year, the corps finished seventeenth in DCI semifinals in Boston. In 1995, in only its sixth season, Carolina Crown earned a spot as one of DCI's Top Twelve Finalists, taking eleventh place in quarterfinals and holding that position through Finals. Since that first Finals appearance, Carolina Crown has failed to make DCI Finals only once (2002), finishing within the top 5 in finals every year since 2008 and winning the World Class DCI World Championship in 2013.[6] In recent years, Crown has become renowned for its hornline, consistently one of DCI's best. In the championship year of 2013, the brass scored the first (and only) perfect score in DCI Finals history[7] and won the Jim Ott Award for Best Brass Performance for the 4th time in the preceding five years. The corps would win the award again in 2016, 2017, and 2019.

In 1995, the corps moved from Charlotte to Belmont, North Carolina. Following the 1997 season, the corps relocated to its present home of Fort Mill, South Carolina.[2][3][4]

Carolina Crown, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) musical organization that has a board of directors, corps director, and staff assigned to carry out the organization's mission.[8] Jim Coates is the corps director.[9]

Source:[10]

Gold background indicates DCI Championship; pale blue background indicates DCI Class Finalist; pale green background indicates DCI semifinalist.

At the annual World Championship Finals, Drum Corps International (DCI) presents awards to the corps with the highest average scores from prelims, semifinals, and finals in five captions. Carolina Crown has won these caption awards:

Jim Ott Best Brass Performance Award

• 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019

John Brazale Best Visual Performance Award

• 2012, 2013, 2016

Don Angelica Best General Effect Award

• 2013, 2015

George Zingali Best Color Guard Award

• 2016

DCI also presents an award to the best drum major, as voted on by the DCI Hall of Fame committee:

Jim Jones Leadership Award

• Bob Beasley, 2006
• Evan VanDoren, 2007

Corps song

Carolina Crown's official corps song is "Carolina in My Mind" written by North Carolina native James Taylor and originally arranged by former corps faculty member Marty McCartt and re-arranged by Andre Feagin. The current arrangement is by longtime Crown Brass Arranger Michael Klesch. The lyrics were adjusted for the corps by guard member Adele Honrath (née Williamson) in 2001. The corps sings in harmony before entering the field before each performance. All Crown alumni are welcomed to sing this with the corps.

The adjusted lyrics are: "In my mind, I'm going to Carolina can't you see the sunshine, this feeling lasts for a lifetime, something that I have come to find, I'll never leave behind, yes I'm going to Carolina in my mind."

Theme from Band of Brothers

In addition to the corps song, the hornline also sings and performs the theme from the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers (composed by Michael Kamen and arranged by Michael Klesch) as a theme of brotherhood within the hornline. They sing it after all rehearsals and perform it on their instruments during encores. The hornline never sings it publicly, but only in a close huddle after rehearsals.

Bead necklace and age-out crown

The tradition of the bead necklace was started in 1998. Members receive a bead for every year that they march. The beads are specific to each year, and the shape, color and material of the beads based on the theme of that year's field production. For instance, bead given in 2009 was green, as the show was entitled "The Grass is Always Greener".

The bead is usually given to members on the last day of spring training, often the day of the corp's annual preview show. It serves as a formal induction into the corps for that year's new ("rookie") members. The spirit of this tradition holds that the members have completed the most difficult and grueling part of the season (spring training), and are now full members of the family. Members are free to personalize their necklace as they see fit.

Upon aging out, members will be awarded a silver crown pendant to add to their bead necklace. This is presented to the age-out members at the corps annual awards banquet.

Corps picture "crown"

Since 1990, the corps has always formed the trademark crown logo while having its group picture taken at DCI Championships. Usually, the drum major forms the very tip at the top of the crown. In addition, the bass drum section has often made it a tradition to have their eyes looking off to one side as the picture is snapped.

Age-out dinner

Every year, the corps recognizes the age outs from the current year with a formal dinner held during finals week. Age-outs are given an opportunity to speak and are awarded their age-out crown pendants at this time. In 2007, the decision was made to combine the age-out dinner with the corps awards banquet, which had traditionally been held the December following the summer. In 2009, another change was added as the corps held the age-out dinner in the afternoon of the day after Finals. This was the first time in the corps' 20-year history that it did not depart the Finals city immediately after the Saturday Night Finals show.

NightBEAT

From 1988 to 2008, Carolina Crown hosted "NightBEAT" at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Downtown Charlotte. This show is considered to be the premier non-regional DCI show in the country.

From 2009-2011, NightBEAT was moved to Rock Hill's District III Stadium. While this is a smaller venue than Memorial Stadium (about 4100 seats vs. 7000-8000 for ALMS), the move was necessary as the City of Charlotte was forced to temporarily close ALMS due to a part of the concrete stands collapsing.

In 2012, NightBEAT returned to ALMS when the stadium repairs were completed. Its return was a great success, with a nearly sold-out crowd, and the Carolina Crown missed defeating the Blue Devils by 0.2 points.

NightBEAT was again held at ALMS in 2013, with the largest crowd in NightBEAT history; nearly 7,500 spectators. Again Carolina Crown narrowly missed defeating the Blue Devils by 0.05 points.

In 2015, 2016, and 2017, NightBEAT was held at Wake Forest University's BB&T Field in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A paid attendance of 10,418 set a new NightBEAT record in 2017.

Revenue from NightBEAT is one of Crown's largest funding sources.

CrownBEAT

First starting in 2012, CrownBEAT has been a new edition to the Crown-hosted events in the DCI season. Crown took first in the inaugural season of CrownBEAT, scoring a 74.90.

CrownBEAT was then discontinued from 2013 to 2015 until returning to the regular season in 2016. Though the Crown organization ran this competition, Crown did not compete, as they were in the mid-west at the time. However, in 2017, Crown performed at CrownBEAT and took first with a 79.2.

Since 2016, CrownBEAT has been held at River Bluff High School in Lexington, SC.

Recently, revenue from CrownBEAT has been growing over the past three years that it has occurred. This competition is a must-go for any DCI fans in the Midlands of South Carolina.

Age-out crowns for guard

The color guard for Carolina Crown has its own tradition to honor age-outs. At the awards ceremony for the DCI Finals, the guard members who are aging out wear gold crowns so they can stand out and be honored.

• Carolina Crown website
• Drum Corps International website