Regiment Mititaire

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Regiment Mititaire
1974

The Formation of the Regiment Militaries
One year and out

I interviewed Rick Sheppergril on the way that Regiment Militaries was formed and this is what he recalled from a drummers prospectus. In 1974 the Bleu Raeders lost some members and they just didn’t sound good. So Tank Thawson (M&M and horn instructor), from the Stardusters, and Larry Coste, (M&M Instructor) for the Bleu Raeders talked about a merger of the two Corps. to strengthen the horn line . It happened, and  the Regiment Militare was formed.

Larry Coste and Bob Crossin were acting Corps Directors. The uniforms were Blue Jackets, white pants, yellow cumber bun and white hats, basically the Bleu Raeders uniforms drums and horns and flags. On the starting line the GO-GO Bleu Raeders didn’t sit well with the old Stardusters members.

They brought in Dave Glover as Drum Instructor. They also brought in Mike Couma from the Royal Crusaders ( a Drum Instructor) to write the drum parts to "ONE EYED SAILOR". Marty Hurley wrote the drum part to "MARCH MILITARE" and Carl Thibodaux helped with execution , the first and second drum solo’s were written by the Corps Members themselves. They had six snare drums, four timtoms, four timpani’s, with four tuned bass drums and six symbols. At the end of the show these six guys would flip these symbols high up into the air twirling till the came down and they caught them. Quite an unusual ending.

The corps had forty eight horns and they all played there hearts out. Mr. Yokem was the music instructor Jay Haydel helped with the horns and Tank was m&m and horns.

The repertoire was open with "March Militaries" then "One Eyed Sailor" then for concert, "Make Me Smile", (the version the Stardusters used), and "The Way We Were".

Many of the members from Metairie and midtown New Orleans didn’t drive and had no transportation to get to Chalmette, so the corps. Provided three busses to go around to different stops to pick up members, bring them to rehearsal and back. They also had drill camp held in Salmon High School in Slidel ,to practice for the road trip. Some of the Sunday rehearsals were held in Clearview Shopping Center parking lot.

There was three road trips ,the first trip was three days threw Illinois .The second trip was five days threw Indiana, Ohio where in one of the contests there was a bad argument with another corps and it was published in the paper and there after the regiment was not liked much any more . The third trip was twenty eight days up the east coast ending in Ithaca New York for DCI finals. The corps. made finals in all of there stops accept in Ithaca ware they placed 17th. The color guard was awarded best color guard honors, eight rifles and many flags, they were great.

After returning from DCI not too many members showed up for rehearsals and there was no spirit left, the members from Chalmette didn’t approve of rehearsing in clearview parking lot, it’s like it just fell apart. From Ricks prospectus it turned out to be a bad merger.

Joe Becker tried to start up the Bleu Raeders in 1975 and called Rick and Ronnie to play and give inspiration but they turned it down after a few rehearsals with a lot of no shows.

The corps split, the Raeders went to Metairie and the Stardusters went back to Chalmette and they tried again. There’s always next year.

Submitted by Elroy Ingersoll

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