Meet Montana's Newest Fife & Drum Corps Ahead of America's 250th Birthday

Founded just seven months ago by retired history teacher Steve Armstrong and fife player Pamela Roberts, Glacier Fife & Drum Corps traces its roots to a bucket-list trip to a Connecticut fife and drum "muster" - the largest gathering of its kind in the country. What started as one woman's dream to march in a single parade turned into a full corps, complete with uniforms gifted from the New York Living History Museum and the Presidential Fife and Drum Corps, valued at over $10,000.

With Montana's 250th anniversary celebrations in full swing, the corps is booked solid: a featured performance at the Montana 250 Commission's June 27th event in Helena, then a marathon 4th of July - the Kalispell parade, a park concert, the Conrad Mansion ice cream social, and a night game at the Range Riders ballpark.

They're also on a mission in local classrooms, teaching 3rd-5th graders about Lexington and Concord, Phillis Wheatley, and why the words of the Revolution still matter - and they're looking for new members, families included, to keep marching all the way to 2037: the Constitution's 250th.

Connect with Glacier Fife and Drum Corp on their Facebook page!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Our year is Neppu Sports Center today to talk to the Glacier 500 group. They're a new group that formed recently here in the valley to play traditional Revolutionary War music and battlefield and they travel around local schools and give educational talks about Revolutionary War. And they're fully booked ahead of the 4th of July this year because of the 250th anniversary of the country. So we're here to learn a little bit about what they do and why they do it. Correct.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

That is correct.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Yeah, what was the like the beginnings of this? How did you guys form?

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Well, actually, Pam is the uh originator of the ideas, uh, and she'll really elaborate on this some more, but uh I'll steal some of your thunder. She had the opportunity to go back uh to the east coast of Connecticut to attend a fife and drum gathering, convention, whatever. I mean uh thousands of people there. And so she got to see this up front in personal, and uh she came back and we're both we both play in a an adult concert band, the Flathead Valley Community Band. Yeah. And she approached me and said, We're thinking of doing this. I already had my field drum, my outfit, all that stuff, and and it took off from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Very cool. Yeah. Is this what you play in the community bands?

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Yeah, community concert band. Oh nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Um, have you always been a drummer?

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Uh I've been a drummer for I'm guessing sixty-seven years.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

So you did it in high school?

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Yeah, I I did grade school, high school, college, uh adult concert bands both in Montana and in and out of state. So uh done done a lot of drumming, orchestra, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

And you already had the uniform too.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Uh I didn't have this one, but I had my because I'm I'm a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, so my ancestors ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, so I had a uh a replica Revolutionary War uniform.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

So it sounds like you guys have always been a little bit involved with like the Sons of the American Revolution. Um so you have a you know an ancestor there, but what else interests you about the Revolutionary War?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Well, I'm a retired uh history teacher, uh uh having taught at uh Helena High for a number of years, and then my late wife and I uh she was originally from Illinois, she wanted to go back to Illinois, so we and finished out our careers there in the Chicago suburbs. But I've I've always been fascinated by that by that period of time. I mean, I I like all of American history, but uh the Revolutionary War is a very unique time because it uh you have these very young men and women who are in their late 20s, early 30s who are piecing together all of our founding documents. I mean, just you know, I can't I can't imagine that now. When you look at our current Senate and and uh and I'm old, you know, and a lot of those folks are old, but just imagine people you know, Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, which is just absolutely amazing, and mainly self-taught. I mean, he was fluent in Latin. I mean talking about real Latin. Uh he was fluent in uh Latin, uh French, and Greek. Uh so he re he really knew uh all of the writings from back in that, you know, back centuries ago that helped influence his thinking.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yeah, all that is so fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

As we're you know approaching the 250th anniversary, um, as somebody that thinks about this stuff a lot, like what's on your mind?

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Well, just uh what for me personally is that you know, people look back at our founding documents, and uh I I think in some ways, and this is on both sides of the political aisle, uh, there's been a loss of what those uh documents uh mean, what they stand for. And I think it's important uh that we go back and reflect on this. And uh, you know, we uh the you know Benjamin Franklin had that famous line of uh you know when they wrote the Constitution, they said, Well, what do you have? And he said, Well, we have you have a republic if you can keep it. And uh a new line has come out that says we have a republic if we can reform it, you know, bring it back to what it's supposed to be. Some people believe it's not what it's not really what it is, what it was designed to be right now, and maybe we can get back to not saying going back to the 1920s or 1840s, I'm just saying getting uh a deeper understanding of what what it means uh for our for our country to continue thriving. And I'm optimistic about that. Just we just have to have some changes in the right places and uh and things will still kick in.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

You guys have been going to a lot of local schools and giving talks. Can you what's it?

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yes, oh and it's and it's been absolutely fantastic. Uh uh we developed a script, uh uh there are five or six of us deeply involved in creating this script, and we have a uh uh about a 50-minute, 45 to 50 minute presentation, and it's really, really uh I think it's a fabulous presentation, third through fifth grade. Uh and the reason we're going to that target audience is to get those kids interested. And we have you know, I I do we do silly things like this and we call that the shot heard around the world. Yeah. Okay, now we you know that was that was what was considered the be the beginning of Lexington and Concord. And you jumped at the appropriate time. Yeah, and so it's really it's really been a lot of fun. And then uh we've introduced them briefly. I mean, because of their age group, they're they're not going to have had a lot of American history, but just you know, to get them in get get the idea in the back of their mind that you know history is really pretty cool thing to learn and and to uh uh keep remembering.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

So since you started, I mean it's been less than a year since you guys started this. Um you can go to schools, you're going to Helena soon.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

We're going to Helena on June 27th. We're gonna go give special presentation at the Montana 250 Commission's celebration. Montana 250 Commission realized that they can't have their ceremony on July 4th because we have the Big Fork Parade, the Calisbell Parade, the Butte Montana Parade, which is the largest parade in the state. And uh so they decided to have it on June 27th. And so we're really excited to go there and be one of their featured uh performers at that Montana, Montana 250th. Uh, and in addition, in addition to that, and Pam can elaborate when she's got the microphone on, uh, we're going to have a full day on Saturday on Saturday, July 4th, with uh in our concert band, we're gonna perform with the band uh at at the Depot Park concert, which is which occurs right after the uh Kalispell parade is over. And then we're gonna skedaddle as quickly as we can to Conrad Mansion to perform at their ice cream social. Then we get a little bit of a break, and then we uh are going to perform at the Range Riders uh game on Saturday night, which will really, really, really be a lot of fun. But uh uh what we're hoping to do is you know, this will help us get the word out of who we are and that we exist, and uh we're hoping to have a lot more performances in the fall. We already have several lined up already already, school presentations lined up in the fall. Uh, and this is gonna be one in Eureka, uh several in in uh in the Kalis Bell area. We're reaching out to all of the other schools we haven't uh seen yet, and believe me, they're very enthused about having us come.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Yeah, I bet. What a cool interactive, you know, yeah, it and and it really, really is.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

So I had had a bucketless dream to march with a five-and-drum core. And all of a sudden last spring I realized, okay, you're not getting any younger, and next year is the 250th anniversary of our country. It's now or never. So I decided to try to march with a five-in-drum core because that was really my dream. And so I went online, checked out different Facebook groups, and I don't do Facebook easily or well. We do have a Facebook page, and we would love people to like our page. Okay. And we're gonna try to make it more interactive as well with future events and that sort of thing. But um I found a group in California for young people, and I contacted their director, and he said, Look, if you can memorize Yankee Doodle, you can come march with us on July 4th. So last July 4th, I marched with this Fife and Drum Corps to check off my bucket list. Then two weeks later, I heard about this group that was gathering in Connecticut for the largest gathering of fife and drum cores called a muster, and I thought, I'm gonna go to that. And so I was so taken with the community that I saw there. And it's from young people all the way up to seniors, and how somebody might march in a fife and drum core carrying a fife for three years before they ever play it. I mean, it's certainly a process, it's a difficult instrument, it's a process of osmosis. A lot of the young people will start carrying a uh a fake uh musket and march with the parade group before they ever play the drum. You know, so it's kind of learning by immersion, and um I just felt so welcomed, and I came back and I thought, hmm, I never intended to start a five and drum corps. But I came back, I learned of Steve's interest and his commitment to spreading news about the Revolutionary War, and so then we decided to start this group. So our we're passionate about taking our programs into the schools, that's our main uh stick, you know, the main thing that excites us. We I have been saying, and Steve has been correcting me, these uniforms were gifted to us from the New York Living History Museum. We got we were gifted nine jackets and about six vests and about six trousers from the our old guard. This is the presidential Fife and Drum Corps, and they're valued at about $10,000. So, and you cannot buy them, these jackets. And so they have given us a lot of credibility just without playing any music. So we're trying to really memorize our music, which is hard for us, but we're getting some music memorized, and we want to represent our country well, and we want to help make people grateful. What I you asked Steve what his passion was about the schools. I think for me that my passion is the importance of words, how important our words are. Steve gave the example of the young uh forefathers that created the Declaration of Independence. There's a black slave girl who wrote a poetry poem to George Washington, and it really affected him, where she was talking about freedom, and here she is, a black slave girl named Phyllis Wheatley, Thomas Paine wrote critical words that helped to unite the colonies, and that him, Chester, also helped to bring these people from different cultures that didn't really trust each other together to decide that they needed to go for their independence against the world's greatest military.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

It's so inspiring, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

It is, yeah. Kind of a David and Goliath story, and lots of miracles, lots of things to be grateful for, and we're trying to promote that in our young people.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Definitely. I mean, especially on the eve of the 250th anniversary, um, like I was saying to Steve, you know, as somebody who cares about this stuff so deeply, like what's on your mind ahead of the anniversary.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

I do hope that Americans will stop and pause and consider that it's just not a barbecue on this July 4th. There'll never be a July 4th like this one ever again in our lifetimes. And we need to really savor the moment. We need to have gratitude, we need to really promote, you know, what our forefathers and understand what our forefathers did for us. To think that men could rule themselves and not need a king, and they tried so hard to make George Washington king, and he just steadfastly stepped away. So, you know, learn about your forefathers. Learn about the importance of John Adams and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Hancock. I mean, there's so many, and Phyllis Wheatley, there are so many great stories.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Yeah, absolutely. Are you a Hamilton fan, an Alexander Hamilton?

SPEAKER_00 12:24

He did a lot, yeah. He he I haven't seen the musical, but he did a lot to get our banking system going. And um yeah, so it's just can you find somebody that you want to read about? That would be my question.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

How did you recruit the other members?

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Word of mouth. Yeah. Um our flag bearer lives in the woodlands where I live. Um, our other drummer also basically twisting arms, wouldn't you say, Steve?

unknown 12:52

Not too hard.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Not too hard, but just trying to get word of mouth out there, you know. Hey, would you like to play a drum? And we, you know, we sort of come together. Uh most of the fifers play in the community band with me. Um so being an established flute player is a distinct advantage because the fife is a crude and somewhat difficult instrument to play.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

But we're looking for more. We would love more members to join us and we'd love to make this turn this into a family thing where families can come and bring their kids and learn to play drums and learn to play fife and learn to march and you know look forward to being in parades and putting costumes on and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Steve's vision is to keep this going until 2037. The Constitution's 250th. If people want are interested in joining our group, um, they can text me or they can go to our Facebook page and and uh email us.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

I don't know how appropriate this is, but I used to play flute and I was wondering if I could give it a try. Yeah. If you if you're fine with that. Yeah. You know, all right, let's give it a shot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I get the the with the so with no cover with no keys covered, okay, you should be able to make and then you start covering.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Okay, all right, so you don't even really have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

There you go. Now a faster airstream, and you'll get the higher pitch. It is a crude instrument.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Well, thank you so much for letting me try. That's really cool. I I wanted to play Piccolo in band, but um I ended up doing colored art.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

Ah, uh, July 8th is the 250th anniversary of the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. Okay. And so I'm coordinating an event that's going to occur in Big Fork at a at a uh uh a bakery called Lake Bake, which is right on the Swan River, and Lake Bake has uh uh a big stage and a uh big piece of property. Uh we're gonna have a high school kid from Big Fork uh recite the D of I. Um Fife and Drum Corps is gonna be there to play Yankee Doodle and a few other songs.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Uh this is a national reading.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

This is a n this is a national, yeah, this is occurring throughout the country. Um as a matter of fact, the big event from in Helena is going to be at four o'clock at the state capitol. But uh my thinking was, you know, not all of us can just get outled to Helena. Um so why don't we have a reading here? And unfortunately, there are enough people who are enthused about it uh that we're gonna make it happen. So that would be uh boot in the hall.