Knights Drum and Bugle Corps

History

The history of the Knights began with a boy's fife and drum corpsformed in the 1930's sponsored by the American Legion Post in Kewanee,Illinois. Within a short time the fifes were replaced by bugles and theS.A.L. (Sons of American Legion) Junior Drum and Bugle Corps was formed. Thatcorps competed actively through 1942 when World War II took most of themembers.

After the war, interest in drum corps began again and veterans of the SAL corps returning from the war formed a senior corps in 1949. Withthe help of the Kewanee American Legion, the corps raised money forinstruments and new uniforms and in 1951 the name Kewanee Black Knights waschosen. The Black Knights became a familiar corps on the state and nationalscene from 1951 to 1964. In addition to many local championships, the BlackKnights finished in the American Legion National finals (top 12) every yearfrom 1954 through 1961. When the senior group disbanded in 1964, the name and traditions were passed to a new group that was formed to provide an activity for the youth of the community.

In the winter of 1965-66, the Black Knights junior corpswas born. The corps became successful early on, making thefinals contest in the 1966 Illinois State Fair competition. The Black Knights of Kewanee dropped the Black from their name in 1972. The corps was moved from Kewanee to Geneseo after the 1973 season. In 1980 the corps won a national title at the US Open in Marion, Ohio. In 1983 the Corps was marching 122members and was recognized as a viable competitor. They placed third in DCMfinals, were 9th at DCI regional prelims in Whitewater, and also came in among the leaders at DCI East in Allentown, Pa. It was decided to move the Corps to the Quad Cities in 1989. In 1991, The Knights merged with the Emerald Knights of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, an experiment that lasted only one season. The Knights went inactive in 1995, their last competition being the Illinois State Fair, the site of their first competition 29 years earlier in 1966.

Innovations

1972: Knights were the first corps to abandon the traditional cadetuniform in favor of a "uniform costume" that depicted the name of the corpsas well as the music they were playing in their program. They adopted auniform consisting of a knight's tunic with a cross and a robin hood hat andplayed selections from the musical Camelot. Several years later theCavaliers and Phantom Regiment both followed suit and adopted uniforms morein keeping with their name. This was also one of the first "theme shows" where the name, music and marching drill all carried a unified story.

1979: prior to a number called"Slavanic Dance" four of their guard girls disappeared into the percussionsection and reappeared in full Hungarian costumes and danced to the music.They went back into the percussion section to change back into their guarduniforms while the show continued and many times the audience was not awarewhere they went. Costume changes like this are done frequently now.

1984: In one of the lastproductions of the show, they featured a boy and girl from the guard in asolo dance number.

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