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The first Band pictured in the first Blue
M (photo 1) looks like a group of kids
“clowning around.” It waswas a group of kids
clowning around; they were a part of the
1919 MHS Circus. The Circus was an
all-school event produced by the student
council each year between 1919 and 1924.
Every Circus held a Circus Parade in
which the Band marched, along with ‘wild
animals’ and a preview of the main events
and sideshow acts—tumblers, singers,
dancers, and the ‘wild animals,’ all acted/
made by students and for which the public
paid admittance. Circus was a fund-raiser.
A large chorus and the orchestra were also
part of the show. A kind of forerunner of
today’s Variety Show, ‘Circus’ was an
activity of many students in the Blue Ms.
The Clown Band apparently
continued to play as a pep band at football
games and basketball games. Recognizing
this talent and interest, the school hired
a professor of music to come down from
Kansas State College to lead them (as was
already being done for the school orchestra.)
MHS students had turned their “clowns”
into the MHS Band!
In 1923, the band was pictured
in the Blue M as a regular school group
(Photo 2) with director, math teacher Paul
Evans. They played concerts as well as for
all home football and basketball games,
and traveled to Topeka and Lawrence for
games.
Photo 2: High School Band, 1923 Blue M
By 1924, activities at MHS must
have been humming. The first black
player lettered in football that year, Forest
Lorenzo Walker; three boys were elected
cheerleaders, Raymond Dobbs, Paul
Barger, and Karl Pfuetze; and Mr. R. H.
Brown was hired as the first Director of
Instrumental Music. Mr. Brown, who had
started to direct District strings part-time
in 1923, also
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Photo 1: 1919 Circus Band at MHS
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owned the music shop on Poyntz Avenue which would later become
Betton’s Music, and was the director of the
Manhattan Municipal Band.
While instrumental music was not
yet a class and no school time was used for
practice, Mr. Brown encouraged students
who were at all interested in an instrument
to sign up for Band or Orchestra. He
immediately enlarged the Band by including
students from Manhattan Junior High, in
the building next door, to play along side
their Senior High counterparts.
The Circus was changed in 1924
into a Country Fair and given a more
educational theme, but the “Boys Band”
(as it was called in the ‘24 yearbook)
retained its place in the festivities, along
with orchestra (in which girls played)
and chorus. They also won first place in
a Sectional Music Tournament, the first
contest for Band mentioned in the Blue
Ms. The “Jazz Band” played at football
and basketball games and for pep rallies.
In 1929, our MHS School Song,
“Deep in our Hearts”, was written and
adopted, and the Band’s and Mr. Brown’s
popularity were high. “When Mr. Brown
came to town five years ago,” quotes the
‘29 Blue M, “there were four people who
could play instruments,” but by the spring
of ‘29 they had a Band of 80, an Orchestra
of 60, and Mr. Brown had “the respect and
admiration of all.”
And that Band of 80 members
wasn’t just any band: it was the Famous
Oriental Band! (Photo 3)
The uniforms of the Oriental Band
must have been splendid. Brilliantly
colored with scarlet, blue and emerald green
satin, their cummerbunds and white
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puttees
would have flashed when they marched. In
1930, the Band boasted 68
regular players
then swelled to 80 for parades—and
judging from the photo below, some of
these were girls. In addition to their regular
schedule of football and basketball games,
they marched and played in more places
than ever—at the American Royal Show in
Kansas City and in Manhattan’s Diamond
Jubilee Celebration parade.
The Great Depression shows in
the thin yearbooks of the 30s with fewer
photos. Enthusiasm for the band did not
dim in spite of the hardships, which included
a polio epidemic in 1931. But a more
classroom-type mission was developed,
stated in part by the 1934 Blue M as The
Purpose of the High School Band: “...to
give students practice time and opportunity
to play different instruments.” They still
played at MHS football games and for
pep rallies, although the big full band seems to have
dropped basketball games during this decade. They
marched in parades and at the American Royal Show in
Kansas City, where the group won second place Honors
in 1939. The band also had an opportunity each year
to play at a Kansas State football game. Although not
all the Blue M’s of the 30s specifically mentioned the
Band, the decade ended with the 1939/1940 yearbook
dedicated once more to the MHS Band Man, Mr. R. H.
Brown.
After this start to the decade, a new 1941 Band (photo 4) emerged. At
72 members strong with military-style uniforms, three twirlers and a drum
major, they had a completely new identity ready for the coming war years.
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