Reflecting on the Bemidji High School marching band's musical 85-year history

Editor’s Note: The Beltrami County Historical Society is partnering with the Pioneer on  a series of monthly articles highlighting the history of the area,  with 2024's articles focusing primarily on music. For more information, visit  www.beltramihistory.org.

With the arrival of spring, Bemidji High School’s summer marching band season begins. Director Derek Wickum is cutting music, refining this year’s theme, lining up band members, and working with a choreographer to plan the season’s routine for parades and competitions.

Since 1939, marching bands have been a major part of the BHS music program and of Bemidji’s annual Fourth of July parade. Three long-term directors — Earl Kerns, Terry Bradley and Derek Wickum — have played key roles in developing the marching band program which has represented the school and the community at home, across the state, from coast to coast and in Canada.

In 1939, Earl Kerns was hired as the BHS band and orchestra director and started the elementary music program that year. Kerns taught and directed in Bemidji for 32 years before retiring.

In addition to band groups that performed three concerts per year and played at BHS football and basketball games, his bands represented the school and the city at various city and state events.

Each year, 60-90 student musicians performed in Kerns’ marching bands. He also taught baton twirling and initiated classes for twirlers and majorettes. His 1956 marching band won first prize in a competition in Austin, Minnesota. They also performed that year at the North Dakota State Fair in Grand Forks.

Phil Wattles, a 1960 BHS graduate, and his friends Milo Meland and Dexter Whittemore played baritone in Kerns’ bands. Wattles describes his director as “running a pretty tight ship.” Wattles remembers performing mainly in Bemidji and Winnipeg. Competitions were different than they are today, he says: “It was strictly marching.”

Wattles recalls that his uniform, his baritone and trips out of town were all furnished by the school.

“I think we bought our own white bucks,” he says of the marching shoes they wore. He thought the bucks were very cool. “All the crooners were wearing them at the time.”

Unfortunately, the white bucks didn’t look so great any time the band marched behind horses in parades.

Kerns had studied music at North Dakota State University, South Dakota University, the University of North Dakota and the University of Michigan. When Wattles attended NDSU for pharmacy, he inquired about trying out for the band there. When the director learned that Wattles had played for Kerns, he said there was no need to audition; Wattles was in. He played for NDSU for four years.

Before Kerns retired, Arnie Johnson and Les Torgeson directed the marching bands for a few years, but in August 1972, Torgeson resigned and Terry Bradley was hired. Bradley had been teaching in Rolla, North Dakota. While attending a summer session at Bemidji State, he learned of the opening at BHS. He managed to get out of his contract in Rolla and landed the job in Bemidji.

Bradley taught junior high and high school band and general music at the old Bemidji High School campus and traveled to three different schools to teach elementary music.

He appreciated the quality of the music program at BHS and continued to grow and expand it. His marching bands also did field shows during football season, something Kerns hadn’t done. While as many as 90 marchers had participated in earlier bands, Bradley's bands swelled to over 130.

His initial expectation was for all band members to participate in the summer marching band.

"But there’s so much going on in the summer,” he says. “Kids don’t want to give up that much time.”

Each year was more of a challenge to get the numbers needed for a good marching band. By the late 1900s, Bradley says, he was getting about two-thirds as many marchers as he’d had at the peak of the program.

In the 29 years Bradley directed the band, the style of marching and the competitions changed considerably.

“The impact of World War II on bands spilled over into the ’50s, ’60s, and even some of the ’70s,” Bradley says, “but then the Big 10 marching style came along in the ’60s.”

That marching style has influenced everything that has happened since then.

“What Derek (Wickum) and (other directors) are doing now,” he says, “is more of what’s called core style marching where they do more ‘show’ than just marching down the street.”

Bradley’s marchers typically did seven to nine parades per summer and were done by the 15th of July. Over the years, the number of schools in northern Minnesota that could sustain summer marching band programs dwindled to about five: Crookston, Thief River Falls, Grand Rapids, Plummer and Bemidji.

In addition to traveling to other Minnesota towns, BHS did out-of-state trips every three years. Sometimes special opportunities presented themselves.

In 1976, Bradley’s marchers were invited to perform at the national Junior Chamber of Commerce convention in Minneapolis. Other delegations in attendance wanted to hire bands to march on behalf of their states. The BHS band participated and was selected by Pennsylvania.

“They gave us a little trophy with the Liberty Bell and a nice caption on it,” Bradley says.

The next year the BHS band marched as the official Minnesota representative at the National J.C. convention in Seattle. That trip required special permission and fundraising. Bradley organized a group of parents and raised more than enough money to make the trip. About a hundred BHS band members marched, played a few concerts, served as a pep band for the local J.C.s, and won first place in the parade.

In 1980, the band traveled to Calgary to compete in the Stampede and won first place there. In 1983, a band of 118 marchers went to Portland for the Portland Rose Festival; and three years later, 132 BHS band members marched at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.

A trip to Florida in 1989 included marching band, concert band and competitions in the All-American Band Festival. BHS placed second in the contest. That same year, they competed at the Second Annual Pioneerland Band Festival in Benson, Minnesota. The Benson Festival continues to be one of the largest festivals in the state, with Bemidji a regular competitor.

In 1991 the band competed in Alexandria’s Vikingland Band Festival, featuring 21 marching units from three states with more than 2,450 participants.

Small town parade routes usually ran a mile or mile and a half; Bemidji’s was a little longer — about two miles. Competitions were often longer. Calgary’s route was 2.5 miles; but the Portland Rose Festival, says Bradley, was the longest at three full miles.

“We lost, I think, three or four kids,” he recalls. "They were percussionists, smaller kids and they just didn’t have the stamina to lug those big drums that far.”

Distance isn’t the only factor that challenges marchers. Marching in summer heat, wearing heavy uniforms or doing field routines in late fall presents dangers ranging from overheating and dehydration to frostbite.

When Bradley’s marchers performed at the Grey Cup in Winnipeg in November 1991, the temperature was 12 degrees when Bradley woke up that morning. By marching time, it had crept into the teens.

“All the brass instruments would freeze because of the water inside of them,” he says. “The second time we played, it would be drums and woodwinds, and in that temperature, everything is so gosh awful out of tune it sounds like wash tubs. By the third time we played, the guys had blown warm air into their brass instruments to warm them up, so they would function again, so it was like different bands all the way through the parade. We didn't lose anybody — one gal thought she had frostbite, but she didn't.”

In spite of it all, they won the Judges’ Award.

In 1992, Bradley’s band marched in Wyoming for Cheyenne Days; in 1995, they returned to Calgary.

Each year the bands completed most of their parades and competitions prior to their Bemidji’s Fourth of July parade, a major highlight for the community.

Bradley retired in 2001. After 29 years of teaching and directing at BHS and getting to know many of the music students throughout their entire high school careers, his final concert, he says, was like a celebration.

Scrapbooks of Bradley’s marching bands include programs, photos, news clippings and thank you notes from students and parents — not just for the music opportunities and experiences, but also for the life lessons like teamwork and leadership.

Each year, graduating seniors made class prophecies and shared special memories and plans for the future. Memories of the band were often highlights of their high school years.

When Bradley retired in May, the summer of 2001 was without a director. Derek Wickum would come aboard in August, but no BHS marching band performed in Bemidji’s Fourth of July parade.

A letter to The Pioneer’s editor voiced serious disappointment with the lack of a marching band that year. Paradegoers had come to expect high-quality performances from BHS.

Bradley says, “There was a lot of pressure in the community to maintain a marching band.”

When Derek Wickum stops to count how many years he’s been directing Bemidji High School bands, he’s a little surprised, but 23 years, he says, is also “a little cool.”

Following on the heels of a 29-year veteran is not easy. Each band director has his own style, goals, passions and direction in which he wants to take the student musicians.

Wickum had directed the marching band at Northome for seven years before coming to Bemidji, drawing mainly from what he recalled from his own high school marching days: “Line ‘em up and go!” — still no simple task with 70 to 100-plus young musicians playing instruments.

For his 2002 BHS marching band debut, the band marched to “El Cumbanchere” in Bemidji’s Fourth of July parade and a few others, marching in a tight military-style formation. They wore the two-toned blue wool-blend uniforms Bradley had ordered back in the mid-1980s.

Parade competition had spread across the southern half of the state, but the northern half, with the exception of a few field marching bands, had not established a presence in state competitions.

Wickum took the band to one competition.

“We marched as a street band,” he says, “and then watched the shows from other bands. We decided as a band that we would pursue this type of marching arts.”

Wickum took the challenge, designed a field routine and adapted it for marching down city streets. Once he saw the possibilities for creative performances that would also advance high school marchers in their musical abilities, he caught the competitive bug.

Performing blends choreography with marching. Steps aren’t just uniform and in time; dance moves include turns, pivots, slides, pinwheels, changes of tempo and rhythm, and changes in direction — marching forward, backward, diagonally, sideways, interweaving, splitting into different formations — all while playing a challenging musical arrangement.

For his first competitive program, “Circe de Soliel” in 2006; they performed “La Nouba,” one movement of a multi-movement piece. Their theme: “We’re on a mission.” And the mission was to learn how to compete. That year, they donned new uniforms, marched in several parades, and competed at Benson.

Since then, the BHS marching band has had increasingly complex and creative routines. They march in six to eight parades each summer and are regular contenders at annual competitions — not just competing, but bringing home awards like first, second and third places, Grand Champions, Best Drum Majors, Best Drum Line and Best Color Guard.

Some of Wickum’s most memorable programs include the 2011 show, “1982,” a flashback to the 1980s with music from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album; 2014’s “Blues Brothers”; 2017’s “Invincible”; the 2018 Pirate Show, and last year’s "Starwars.”

Even when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the competitions that didn’t stop the BHS marching band, they instead came up with an “Unparade” season.

Wickum started preparing for this summer’s marching band in November. For 2024, he has selected a Spaghetti Western theme with music by Ennio Morricone that audience members will likely recognize from Clint Eastwood westerns.

Once the music has been cut, a choreographer is involved. Rehearsing begins in April with fundamental marching skills. Each year about a third of the marchers are first-timers. Eighth-grade band members will join for the summer schedule and a few “super seniors” will give it one more season after they graduate.

Wickum is hoping to build up the numbers after a dip due to COVID-19’s effects and after-effects. Last year, BHS had 70 marchers, down from his band’s highest number of 117 in 2019.

The 2024 marching band season will include five competitions, seven parades and a special public performance/fund-raiser early in the season at the BHS practice football field.

For more on the BHS marching band, watch out for “The Making of a Marching Band” in the summer edition of the Pioneer's inBemidji Magazine.