A Bit of History

In the early 1960's, Jackie & Charlie Haas were searching for an activity that would interest their two oldest children.  One summer evening, as they drove past a local high school, something in the parking lot caught their eye.  They saw what appeared to be a band rehearsing, so they decided to stop and check it out.  It was not a band, but something called a Drum & Bugle Corps.  This group was not affiliated with a particular high school as bands were.  Rather, it was a group of kids from all over the area that came together to from a Drum Corps know as "The Pennsylvanians." 

The Haas children were intrigued, as were Jackie & Charlie.  They stayed to watch the group rehearse and spoke with the adults in charge.  That evening, the two oldest children left as members of The Pennsylvanians and so began the Haas Family's' involvement in Drum Corps - an involvement that would end up spanning decades.  Over the years, each of the five Haas children would become involved in the activity. 

During the early years, Charlie had access to something that was virtually unheard of at the time - video equipment.  Charlie and Jackie had both been involved in video work through Charlie's job and, as luck would have it, Charlie's employer allowed him access to the video equipment any time, for his own personal use.  Charlie and Jackie began taking the video equipment with them to various Drum Corps shows around the area.  Afterwards, all the kids from the Corps would pile into the Haas Family living room to watch their performances. 

The video equipment of the 1960's was not compact as it is today.  The video recorder was a large piece of equipment that required reel-to-reel tapes.  The camera was huge and cables had to be run from the camera to the recorder.  The camera was set up high in the stands with Jackie at the viewfinder.  Charlie was situated under the stands where he manned the recorder.  As time went on, Charlie eventually operated two recorders -  one for recording the Corps performing on the field, and the other for instant playback of the Corps that had just finished their performance. 

Over the years, Jackie and Charlie worked with many Corps' - both Junior and Senior - as well as several high school bands.  They had an invaluable teaching tool.  Video taping rehearsals and shows allowed the members to actually see what they were doing on the field and also allowed them to see their mistakes. 

In order to save on costs, video tapes were often "recycled".  Unfortunately, this meant much of what was recorded was eventually erased so the tapes could be reused.  However, at the end of 1974, many video tapes remained.  They were packed away and made a trip across country when the Haas Family moved to Colorado in 1975.  They made the trip back East a few months later when the family moved back to Pennsylvania.  They were stored for almost twenty years until the early 1990's, when Charlie began working on converting the videos from reel-to-reel to VHS format.  The videos were made available to people all over the country for a period of time, however, as is typical of VHS tapes, they began to wear out after too much use. 

In an effort to preserve this valuable Drum Corps history, Charlie recently spent a great deal of time and effort once again converting the tapes - this time to DVD format.  On the following pages titled Juniors and Seniors, you will find the performance we currently have available for purchase.