On Saturday, April 17, the highlight of the spring social season with the ODCB was the wedding of our director, Jon Patton, and Tina Wedding at the Newburgh Presbyterian Church. Jon and Tina had met while in the band, and the band helped them celebrate with a reception at, what was then, the band house on the hill above the old lock building where we rehearsed. The town of Newburgh had given us an upstairs bedroom to use to store music and supplies, as well as the key to the house that was empty otherwise. We took good care of that old house for them, in return, cleaning it completely of the accumulation of years of neglect. For Jon and Tina’s wedding reception, several of us worked for hours cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms, as well as decorating the front room for the party.
Jon and Tina have gone on to start Patton Music in downtown Newburgh, a successful music store that offers private student lessons as well as musical instruments, sheet music, and all the stuff that goes with it. They now live in the country between Reo and Owensboro, and have a son, Cory. Carmen, the little girl who spent so many rehearsals playing with Shorty the dog is now a teenager at South Spencer High School! The Pattons have founded the Spencer County Community Band in Rockport and continue to provide the area with wonderful music.
That old house on the hill, incidentally, has become a really nice vacation rental unit, owned by the town of Newburgh. The band rented it for the 4th of July celebration and fireworks for the first time in 2010, and it was a cool retreat with kitchen and bathroom facilities that we’ll probably utilize again. The town has also renovated the Old Lock and
Dam Building and it is looking a lot better these days. However, by 2010 we have outgrown it!
On May 8th of that year, 2004, the band hosted what was billed as “The First Annual Spring Hillside Concert” at the Old Lock and Dam Park on the river in Newburgh. Along with the ODCB and the Little Old Dam Band, “O’Capella”, a contemporary accapella group, The Emerald Society Pipe Band, a bagpipe band, Rhiannen, a Celtic group, and the Bend in the River Brass Band all provided entertainment for an assorted group of music lovers and passers-by. The Newburgh Arts Community provided some refreshments, but, if I remember right, it was very hot that afternoon and we mostly perspired for each other rather than for much of an audience.
Memorial Day weekend found both the big and little bands very busy. The concert band played as it always has for the Rose Hill Cemetery ceremony, then the guys in the Little Dam Band raced from the Weber family reunion party in Midway, Indiana, back to the Newburgh Presbyterian church for their Strawberry Festival that evening. We’ve always seen that events fall into groups somehow, and demand can exceed performance. But we always try!
Mary Williams
Mary showed up this year with her saxophone to join Bryant Taylor and me, the lonely altos. She had joined the Owensboro Community Band when Hugh Whitaker started it that year, and came along over the big blue bridge to Indiana to play with us in Newburgh, too. She’s been sharing her talent and her wit with us ever since. When Mary’s there, the alto section has too good a time! Mary has bought and donated many tunes to us and to the Owensboro Band, and we can count on old rock band charts and musicals to come with her. Grease and The Incredibles are two of her donated pieces, much to Carl Becker’s dismay!
Mary remembers such memorable moments as the Easter Parade when we froze, but wore the “peep bonnets” she concocted on the parade float through downtown Newburgh. She also came up with the idea for a unique lighting technique for the parades at the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival every Fall. Ask Bryan Hartig about that sometime. She figured that we ladies could use some stick-on battery-operated lights to illuminate our music, until we decided that we’d just be illuminating our own feet instead! We DO have a good time, even if we are a bit rowdy, in the sax section!
We can always count on Mary to bring an old man or two along with her to rehearsals and concerts; Hugh, now that Al is gone, rides shotgun for her on their trips from Owensboro. She and Al always have seen that Hugh gets to practice in recent years, and I, for one, will always be grateful to her for that, because she brings her own joy along as well as Hugh’s.
Incidentally, when she dies, Mary wants to be shot out of a cannon while the ODCB and the Owensboro Community Bands together play the “1812 Overture.” We’ll see, Mary!
On June 9th six members of the Little Old Dam Band, and 4 spouses, made our way to Newburgh, England, to help that little village celebrate its 700th year as a chartered market town. Jon and Tina Patton had planned on making the trip with us, but Jon developed serious eye problems that kept them from joining us. We were thankful, along with them, that he kept his vision and recovered his health, although we missed them on our journey to the old country.
It needs to be noted, I think, that never has the Old Dam Community Band paid anyone for playing or conducting. No one has ever been compensated for participating in the band, and trips like the one the little band made to England were paid for entirely by the participating members themselves. We may have had an expensive personal trip, but were rewarded in so many other ways, and have always felt privileged to have represented the band and the town of Newburgh on that wonderful, busy vacation.
July 4th brought the fireworks on the river and our annual fireworks show at the old lock and dam site. That July also featured the Little Old Dam Band playing for such varied venues as the Folsomville School Reunion, a “boot sale” for the Newburgh Arts Community, and several church homecoming celebrations in the area. On July 28th, this little group traveled to Indianapolis to play in the lobby of the Indiana State museum. Once again, this small Dixieland band helped remind Indiana residents that music is alive and well in our pocket of southwestern Indiana.
Back in Newburgh, the ODCB again sponsored Band Fest on Sept 11th and 12th, this year spanning two days and featuring many more area groups. On Saturday, the show featured “O’Capella”, the Rhine Valley Brass, a group of students from Opus One Music, and the Little Old Dam Band. The Mt. Vernon High School Jazz Ensemble started Sunday afternoon off, followed by Reitz High School Jazz Band, and the Christian Fellowship Praise Orchestra. At 3pm, the Revolution Dance and Stomp Ensemble from Providence, Kentuckyy entertained the masses with an exciting performance. The Bend in the River Brass Band once again helped us out, as did a new group called “De Ja Vu”. And Newburgh’s own Old Dam Community Band rounded out the evening with a rousing performance.
We have tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, through the years, to bring entertainment and music to the Newburgh area. Dan and members of the Board have always envisioned a real town spirit and perhaps an entertainment venue by our beautiful Ohio River. We’ve yet to reach that goal, but I hope it still gleams somewhere in the future.
Dan Schultz
Dan is the founder of the ODCB and, in all respects, the glue that holds us together. This man had an idea, to start a community band, and he thought it out and made it happen. This is how Dan lives his life. When, after a life of working in manufacturing, during which he obtained a couple of degrees in engineering, and married and raised two daughters, he found himself divorced and jobless in his early 50s, he reinvented himself as the Village Tinker and the president of a band, not to mention finding and marrying me!
Dan was born and raised in Evansville and started playing the tuba in grade school at Delaware Elementary, where, he says, he was late getting to the first band practice and handed the only instrument left, the tuba. Dan worked his way through high school and joined the Navy in the late 60s, ending up with Navy Intelligence in Scotland, where he joined the local town band in Montrose, for something to do on Tuesday evenings when he was not on duty. Some 35 years later, he would take me back there and we found that same town band, under the direction of the same band director, still practicing at the same location on the same evening of the week. When we walked in off the street, that director… James Eastman… took one look at us and said, “Well, Dan Schultz! Where did you go?” Because of his father’s unexpected illness and death, Dan had been forced to return home all those years ago without saying goodbye. Since Dan had been the only ‘US Navy boy’ who ever played with the local band, that director remembered that boy Dan had been, even down to his name and the instrument he played! What a memorable trip that was for us.
Dan and I met through a dating service with the Evansville Courier, the precursor to today’s E Harmony.com, I guess. He had dated dozens of women, but I was the last, and so I have always felt chosen by a very special man. We moved into the house he had built years before in Newburgh, and started our life together before the band. We were only married a couple of years before he decided we needed music to make us even happier! So he started the band.
I have learned through these years that Dan has a very unique way of doing anything he sets his mind to do. He gets an idea, then thinks about it for days or weeks, during which I’ve never been quite sure what he’s up to, and plans exactly how he’s going to do it. Then he does it. And, almost always, he does it well.
He started his own business as the Village Tinker, repairman of musical instruments, when his career in manufacturing in the automation industry nose-dived in 2003 and he found himself non-hirable because of his age. This man just made himself over. He thought it through, investigated the repair business, and made it his own. He is now regarded world wide as a leader in tuba repair and knowledge because of his presence on the internet and several web sites.
We plan our vacations around music events, going to conventions with the Association of Concert Bands around the country, or just taking our instruments along in case we see someone to play with. We arranged a 3 week trip to California and northwest Canada and back by car a few years ago, planning the whole trip around the rehearsal schedule of half a dozen bands around the country. All Dan did was get on line, put out our suggested route, and we had about 20 bands who invited us to come play with them for an evening! What a fantastic vacation idea! Sightsee during the day and play with local community bands in the evening. I highly recommend it. As Dan says, “We could just sit around and watch TV in the motel room!” … Or we could meet interesting musicians from all walks of life all over the United States and get a chance to play with all sorts of folks.
Dan works daily for the ODCB, and I doubt if any of us knows how much time he puts into it. The band exists because of all us, but it rolls smoothly along because of Dan. Sort of like my life. Thank you to that special man who makes it all worth while.