When the D-B Cheerleaders Froze Their Pom Poms Off! Also When Kingsport Tried to Bulldoze Church Circle! And Sousa Conducted the D-B Band!

 

The Year The City Tried To Bulldoze Church Circle

Bill Barnett thought he smelled a rat. The Kingsport Times-News City Hall Reporter had just finished up covering a routine Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting on Feb. 2, 1954 and he felt the group was hiding something. He wrote in the next day’s paper: “Widening East Sullivan Street from Cherokee Street to the Broad Street Circle won top place on the tentative list Tuesday night.”

 That project had been postponed numerous times over the year. “Previous city councils had passed up the Sullivan Street petition - now the oldest in the city's files - on the ground it would involve removing trees along the parkway and thus would destroy the scenic effect of the entire circle area. Broad Street Circle, with tree-lined streets radiating from it in six directions and churches on four of the six corners, is one of Kingsport's oldest and best-known landmarks. However, it also is one of the city's worst traffic headaches.”

And that’s where Barnett smelled the rat: “The nature of the changes planned was not made public, and city officials were not available for questioning on it immediately after the meeting.”

And with good reason were they not available for questioning after the meeting. They were planning to bulldoze Church Circle!

Barnett managed to corner City Manager D.W. Moulton the next day and smoke out the real story for the front page the next day: “Broad Street Circle would be removed and solid paving substituted for the grass plot under plans being considered by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen as part of this year's street improvement program. The nature of the proposed project was not made public until a reporter sought clarification from Moulton Wednesday.”

Church Circle circa 1920

The public, as expected was outraged. Dig up Church Circle and replace it with paving and multiple street lights? Never!

Four local garden clubs sent letters of protest. The Times-News, under the headline “Spare The Circle,” editorialized, “Kingsport is a unique community because it was planned. Dr. John Nolen of Cambridge, Mass. saw in Kingsport, not only a practical site for industry, but a community of happy people. He saw schools and churches, parks and playgrounds, and shade trees. And so he planned for beauty as well as utility. He laid out a parkway along Broad Street. He laid out park sites along this avenue. And to cap it off, he put a circle at one end of the downtown section. The Broad Street Circle is probably the best known and most beloved landmark in this planned industrial city. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen want to remove the Circle. They claim it is a traffic impediment. Its removal may help ease the traffic problem - and that is doubtful - but it will certainly destroy an integral part of our city. We hope the Board reconsiders. Some things are dearer than ‘efficiency.’”

A February 17, 1954 front page story by Bill Barnett told it all. “Plans for eliminating Broad Street Circle were revised Tuesday night after the Board of Mayor and Aldermen received protests.”

Church Circle was spared.

But Kingsport almost lost Church Circle.

Thanks to a sharp-eyed reporter and an uproar by the public, it was saved.

But barely.

 

When D-B Cheerleaders Froze Their Pom Poms Off!

In 1958 D-B’s basketball team made it all the way to the championship game of the state tournament. Times-News sports editor Frank Creasy followed the team to Nashville and filed this note, buried deep in his column about tournament goings-on:

“D-B's cheerleaders are here. They came down on the bus with the team Sunday. However, they're staying at a motel on the outskirts of town with Mrs. Dottie (Coach Bob) Patterson as chaperone. Dottie was a cheerleader for Nashville Hillsboro the year the stale tourney was held in Johnson City (1953).

“The seven comely D-B girls went along with a publicity gimmick for WSM-TV Tuesday morning. They donned bathing suits and went through some of their routines in the swimming pool (yes, there was water in it), oblivious of the 40-degree breeze.

“The sound film was shown here last night. It was sent on to Johnson City’s WJHL-TV and may be shown Wednesday or later in the week.

“The Tribe yell leaders are Dotty Moran, Brenda Marshall, Linda Thompson, Betty Harman, Pat Bailey, Carolyn Phipps, and Clara Cox.”

 

Maybe that was a run-of-the-mill column item in 1958 but it sure sounds, uh, off in today’s world.

Incidentally the high temperature in Nashville that day was 42, not exactly bathing suit weather.

 

 

1930 D-B Band

Dobyns-Bennett Band Directed by John Philip Sousa Himself Playing One of His Compositions!

It had been 62 years but Bill Highsmith had never forgotten it. Highsmith, who was a member of the D-B band in 1930, recalled the experience of playing for Sousa for the Times-News in 1992.

“The band had gone to Johnson City to attend a Sousa concert, and the D-B band director (S.T. Witt) arranged for Sousa to direct the band during intermission.”

Highsmith played second clarinet. Sousa directed the band through a version of "El Capitan,” at the conclusion of which, Highsmith recalled, Sousa said, “It was certainly fine work boys.”

(Apparently Sousa didn’t notice the “girls” in the band: clarinetist Bertha Lehman, cornet player Lucille Blankenbecler or saxophonists Mary Gladys Brown and Alice McNeer.)

The Kingsport newspaper gave scant coverage to the Sousa concert but the Johnson City newspapers went all in.

The Johnson City Staff-News writer F.W.H. gave one of the most effusive reviews I have ever read in any publication:

John Philip Sousa, now on his thirty-eighth annual tour with his band, gave two concerts at the Capitol Theatre yesterday.

That's a complete description.

If I had taken voluminous notes and attempted a suitable story, I couldn’t have described it; and right after a Sousa concert I haven't any sense at all. If you were there, you know what I mean; If you weren't it's your own fault, and you don't deserve to know anything about it.

Somehow Sousa's band, with Sousa leading, sounds exactly like Sousa. It's a part of American history, civilization and culture, and is still civilizing and cultivating higher ideals.

Sousa was observing his seventy-sixth birthday. During the intermission last night, Mrs. Clyde Smith, president of the Wednesday Morning Music Club, which sponsored the appearance of the band here, presented Mr. Sousa with a birthday cake - lighted candles and all - and, on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, a huge bouquet of chrysanthemums was presented by Mrs. Henry Burbage. Sousa bowed his acknowledgement feelingly.

But what has 76 years got to do with it anyway? The virile Lieutenant-Commander appears with the baton just like he did when I first heard his band some twenty odd years ago, and just like the other times since then.

"O, yes," he said between acts, "I'm still working. I am composing another opera. I had two acts completed when the writer of the libretto died, and I am waiting to find someone to write the third act, so I can finish the music." There's a chance for somebody.

"Music appreciation in America is growing rapidly," he commented, "The schools and colleges are aiding tremendously in developing it. I enjoy coming in contact with orchestras and hands such as you have in your schools here. It bespeaks a better future for the young folks, in many ways besides their music."

He mentioned his newest March, "Royal Welch Fusiliers," composed only a few weeks ago. It was on the evening program. There was a thrill for the Johnson City High School orchestra and the Kingsport school band during, the matinee performance. Sousa himself conducted them in special selections. The young folks expressed the thrill in their performances, which brought prolonged applause from the audience. The band played one of Sousa's marches -conducted by the composer.

I do recall that the programmed numbers represent about one third of the concerts. Encores - insistent encores - added twice that many more selections, both to band numbers and those by soloists:

Miss Marjorio Moody--my, what a voice!

William Tong, cornet--or was it a combination of flute and tuba?

Edward J. Hency, saxophone that sang, or wept, or laughed, just as he wanted it to.

William T. Paulson, xylophones – it can't be done!

And the saxophone double quartet - that made everybody laugh, and want to dance.

And the martial row that led the "Stars and Stripes Forever" - seven cornets, five trombones, six piccolos, with the balance of the band behind them.

Sweet old favorites in encore numbers – and Gosh, here I'm trying to describe something I can't!

The two audiences were large. Sullins and V. I. (Virginia Intermont) of Bristol, sent large delegations by motor to the concerts. Scores from the Teachers College and Milligan College took advantage of the chance: other scores of school pupils.

It was Sousa Day. Flags were flown in the city in honor of the coming of the March King and his band. They arrived shortly after noon in three cars attached to Southern No. 26. They left last night for Greeneville, S. C.

 

(For my musical friends, here are the Sousa band programs as reported by F.W.H., whoever that was.)

Evening Program

Overture, "Carnival Romaine," (Berlioz).

Cornet solo, "Tower of Jewels," (Tong)-Mr. William Tong.

Suite, "The Three S's" – a. "Morning Journals" (Strauss); b. "The Lost Chord" (Sullivan); c. "Mars and Venus" (Sousa).

Vocal solo, "Staccato Polka" (Mulder)-Miss Marjorie Moody.

"Holy Grail" from "Parsifal" (Wagner).

Interval.

Spanish Rhapsody, "Espana," (Chabrier).

Saxophone solo, "Beautiful Colorado," (Deluca) - Mr. Edward J. Heney.

New March, "Royal Welch Fusiliers," (Sousa).

Xylophone solo, "Liebesfreud," (Kreisler) - Mr. William T. Paulson.

Cowboy breakdown, "Turkey in the Straw," (Guion).

Matinee

Overture, "Rienzi." (Wagner).

Cornet solo, "Southern Cross," (Clarke) - Mr. William Tong.

Suite, "Last Days of Pompeii," (Sousa).

Vocal solo, “Love's Radiant Hour" (Sousa) - Miss Marjorie Moody.

"Waltz of the Flowers," (Tschalkowsky).

Interval.

"A Study in Rhythms," (Sousa).

Saxophone solo, "Fantasie in F Minor” (Gurewich) Mr. Edward  J. Heney.

New March, "George Washington Bicentennial," (Sousa).

Xylophone solo, "Parade of the Toy Regiment," (Green) - Mr. William T. Paulson.

Introduction to Third Act of "Lohengrin," (Wagner).

 

Sousa died two years and a day after he directed the D-B band.