PO Box 1201 ~ Pittsburg, CA 94565-1201 ~ (925) 473-4187
HISTORY OF THE PITTSBURG HIGH SCHOOL PIRATES MARCHING SHOW BAND
At one time, the Pittsburg High School Band was quite large but began to diminish during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In 1973, Orrin Cross III came to Pittsburg High School’s music program which, at the time, totaled 18 members. He began recruiting, promising a Marching Band (the band hadn’t marched in years), and by the opening game they boasted 40 players, 10 Letterettes, 5 Majorettes and a Drum Major. Marching at all home games, the band gained a lot of respect from the school and the community. In 1974, Mr. Cross added 10 Swing Flag twirlers to the band and 10 more players. They began to attend all away games to gain interest in the group, and attended their first ever UC Berkeley Cal Band Day. It was the first year the Pittsburg and Antioch High School bands combined to help ease tensions at the annual Big / Little Game. The Marching Band’s first ever Walnut Festival Parade performance in Walnut Creek, CA began in 1976 with 72 players. It was also the year they developed the name of “The Pride of Pittsburg” as a result of a recommendation from a senior citizen who saw the band at the Pitt / Antioch game. Adding the Spirit Groups (cheerleaders, songleaders and mascots) in 1977 brought the group total to over 130. Despite cutbacks in the junior high school music program that was beginning to show at the high school level in 1979, second year Drum Major Joey Acuna led the Pirates Marching Show Band and it’s 78 members to their first ever “King Walnut” award at the Walnut Festival Parade for Most Outstanding Unit in the entire parade. By 1980, no instrumental music program existed at the junior high level and the 65 member Marching Show Band halted its participation at the away games due to the cutbacks. It was difficult to keep the moral high with few incoming players. At this time, the upper classmen started the initiation of first year band members where they would (with parent’s permission) wake the sleeping new band members up a 6 am and have them march down Railroad Ave. to the Creative Arts Building in their PJ’s to receive their reward of hot chocolate and donuts. The tradition has continued to this day.
1
In 1982, Mr. Cross began introducing interested junior high school students to band instruments each morning at the high school to build up the band and prove there was an interest in band at the junior high level. Some 70 students attended, even though they had to come early, on their own, to the high school before the school day began. By 1986, the band had once again grown to 80 players, a result of the junior high schools finally receiving instrumental music instruction the previous three years. The first Band Boosters Club was formed and in 1987 hosted its first Pittsburg Holiday Parade. The event was a HUGE thank you to the Pittsburg community for their help in raising the much-needed funds for the new, and now current, marching band uniforms. In keeping with the greater sense of community, the Boosters then donated the old uniforms to a school in South Africa. The year also marked the beginning of the first Walnut Festival “Twilight” Parade. That was the start of the real “streak” in Contra Costa County. To this day, the Pittsburg High School Marching Show Band has earned the coveted title of Most Outstanding Unit in the Walnut Festival Twilight Parade, losing only once in 1996. Eighty-nine members took the Marching Band through 1992 and their sixth consecutive year of representing Saint Mary’s College in Moraga at many of their home football games. It was also the year for winning the Theme Trophy and Best Band at the Newark Days celebration parade in Newark, CA, as well as Best Band and the coveted John Molinari Award for Best Unit in the San Francisco Italian Heritage Day Parade. They also entertained hundreds at Disneyland, being the first Marching Band ever to perform in a downpour at the park! With the band consistently growing in numbers, well over 120 members, they really started to travel the globe in 1995 with an appearance at the Carquest Bowl Game in Florida, returning to Pittsburg with many awards. In 1997, the 139 member band was honored to perform the pre-game show in front of 50,000 people at the Arizona Copper Bowl, coming home with more awards than the band had ever won before. Sadly, for the band, the 1997 marching season was also its last season with Orrin Cross III, the gentleman who started it all. Following Mr. Cross’ retirement in 1998, band director Sean Goldman from Texas took over the helm. Under his direction, the band made another Disneyland appearance and in 1999 again earned the John Molinari Award for Best Unit in the San Francisco Italian Heritage Day Parade. They closed the 1999 season by being selected as the Honorary Escort Band for Santa Claus in the San Jose Holiday Parade. Mr. Goldman’s tenure ended in 2000, the year of the Pittsburg Unified School District teacher strike. Pittsburg High School graduate Rob Dehlinger took on the position of PHS Band Director following his graduation from the New England Conservatory of Music. As a former band member under the direction of Mr. Cross, he knew the tradition and pride associated with the band and the community, and led the Marching Show Band to their 2
13th King Walnut Award and a first place band award at the San Francisco Italian Heritage Day Parade in 2000. In 2001we all, as a nation, mourned the loss of the brave men and women involved in the 9/11 attacks and the Walnut Festival Twilight Parade was cancelled. To help ease the months of tension and after only a year’s worth of working with his new band, Mr. Dehlinger bravely escorted all 136 students, along with assistant Band Director and former PHS graduate, Jennifer Krey, to Disneyland where they received rave reviews in their performance in front of thousands of holiday revelers. 2002 brought the program a new Choir Director and assistant Band Director, Karren Bascomb, and the race for the King Walnut Award was again on. With its “Tribute to Our Heroes” parade theme, the band easily walked away with their 14th win. The band also had the honor of escorting the honorable Willie Brown, Mayor of San Francisco, down the parade route in the 2002 Italian Heritage Festival Parade where they took home the first place band award. Mr. Dehlinger continued to expand the horizons of the Marching Band along with assistant Band Director Karren Bascomb, and put Pittsburg on the map once again in 2003 with their performances at Universal Studios annual Macy’s Holiday Parade and the Disneyworld Christmas Parade in Florida. They won their 15th King Walnut Award and the honor, once again, of receiving the John Molinari Award at the San Francisco Italian Heritage Day Parade for Most Outstanding Unit in the parade as well as the Best Band award. In addition, just days before their departure to Florida, the band was thrilled to perform at the Oakland Coliseum to represent the Pittsburg High School Pirates Football Team in their elusive bid to upset the powerhouse Del La Salle Spartans in the North Coast Section 4A playoff game. 2004 marked the Pirates Marching Show Band’s unprecedented sixteenth King Walnut Award at the Walnut Festival Twilight Parade and another John Molinari Most Outstanding Unit Award and Best Band award at the 2004 San Francisco Italian Heritage Parade. The 132 member band, including an eight member Flag Squad boasting its first male Flag member also brought home First Place for the Flag Squad in both parades. Pittsburg High School shared their 2005 Pirates Marching Show Band with our friends and neighbors to the West this time, with performances at the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and in the Kaimuki Christmas Parade, the oldest and largest Christmas parade on the Island of Oahu. Victory was theirs again that September with the band bringing home their seventeenth King Walnut Award. It was also the final year of direction by Rob Dehlinger who left to pursue his dream of becoming a professional musician. PHS was extremely lucky for a second time in attracting a former Cross student and alumnus of the program to lead the band beginning in 2006. Jennifer Martinez, a 2000 Pittsburg High School graduate and music degree holder from the University of 3
the Pacific, landed the position easily with her extensive musical background, passion for teaching, and most importantly the expertise and knowledge of the program imparted to her by Orrin Cross III while under his direction. She proved that right out the start gate by leading the band to its eighteenth King Walnut Award where she was approached by the producer of the Oakland Children’s Holiday Parade, a nationally televised event. He was so impressed by the band’s performance he extended her the invitation to have her band perform in the 2006 Parade as the number one lead off band that year. After that first year of getting her feet wet as a new band director, Ms. Martinez began to take the 131 member Pirates Marching Show Band back to its roots by reinstilling time-honored traditions, practices and procedures as Orrin Cross once had, and it showed in both their musicianship and showmanship. The band’s rendition of “Seventy-Six Trombones” from The Music Man left crowds at the 2007 Walnut Festival Twilight Parade awestruck, and earned the band their nineteenth King Walnut Award. Participation in the San Francisco Italian Heritage Day Parade, the Oakland Children’s Holiday Parade, and the San Jose Christmas Parade brought the season to a close…or so we thought. On May 17, 2008, the band was called together once again, along with Ms. Martinez and Ms.Bascomb, for a performance in the Pittsburg Creative Arts Building, the band’s home base. After strutting their stuff onstage and down the aisles, the band settled into their seats to hear the announcement that would change their lives forever. After careful consideration of 215 marching bands throughout the country, the Pittsburg High School Pirates Marching Show Band has been selected as one of eleven bands to participate in the 2009 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. What a day, what a year! The Pride of Pittsburg continues its tradition of performing a brand new half time routine for each and every home football game plus the annual Pittsburg / Antioch Big Little Game, amounting to a total of six new field shows each year. Every parade routine the band performs is customized for the occasion and they have been most proud of their honorary spot for the past twenty years in the annual Pittsburg Holiday Parade. Under the direction of Ms. Martinez the band continues to grow and thrive confirming that the “Pride is Alive” in Pittsburg and will be wherever they go.
4