Today in 1973 - Geneva, New York

Welcome to the opening weekend of the 2012 drum corps season!  Hopefully this will be a great season. Many years ago, drum corps season usually started either in the last week of May or the first week of June. Today's entry is on the third weekend of the 1973 season. So...

Today in 1973, a group of mostly New York corps competed in Geneva, NY. Here are the results:

1 Purple Lancers 66.15
2 Magnificent Yankees 63.60
3 Watkins Glen Squires 59.20
4 Seneca Princemen 52.30
5 General Butler Vagabonds 51.90
6 Mello-Dears 38.65

Trivia

• There were only two corps in this contest not from New York: The Seneca Princemen, from Toronto, Ontario, and the General Butler Vagabonds from Lyndora, PA.
  
• The Mello-Dears were the only All-Girl corps competing in this contest.
  
• The Purple Lancers placed eighteenth at DCI Prelims that season. They would make DCI Finals the next season placing tenth, their only appearance. They would be the only corps from New York to ever make DCI Finals.
  
• The rest of the competitors did not participate in the DCI Championships that season.
  
• However, all of them did compete at U.S. Open on August 9 and 12 that year. Except for the Squires and Mello-Dears, they placed in the same order they did this show, with the Purple Lancers making Open Class Finals (4th in Prelims, 5th in Finals). The Watkins Glen Squires won the Class A championship and the Mello-Dears placed third in All-Girls.
  
• The Seneca Princemen merged with the Toronto Optimists in 1975 and formed the Seneca Optimists. The Seneca Optimists made DCI Finals in 1976 and 1977, becoming the first Canadian corps to make DCI Finals. The next Canadian corps to make Finals was Dutch Boy in 1990.
  
• None of the corps in this contest compete today. By 1983, all but two had folded. The Watkins Glen Squires last competed in 1997 and the General Butler Vagabonds last competed in 2000.

To view the corps repertoires and see more scores from the 1973 season, go to Corpsreps. If you want to learn more about the drum and bugle corps activity, go to Drum Corps International and Drum Corps Associates.