Sequatchie alumni band ends run with today's parade

Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Foster
Colleen Davis, Pat Kerley, Carol Ann COllins, Molly Ann Hamblen and Dr. Karen Shepherd reminisce about their days together in the Sequatchie County Alumni Community Band while chatting Thursday, July 2 in a Sequatchie County home.
Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Foster Colleen Davis, Pat Kerley, Carol Ann COllins, Molly Ann Hamblen and Dr. Karen Shepherd reminisce about their days together in the Sequatchie County Alumni Community Band while chatting Thursday, July 2 in a Sequatchie County home.
photo Staff Photo by Angela Lewis Foster A banner for the Sequatchie County Alumni Community Band lies on the table Thursday, July 2 in a Sequatchie County home.

DUNLAP, Tenn. - Rain or shine, you can bet members of the Sequatchie County Alumni Community Band will be having a grand Independence Day as they mark their last performance today at the Fourth of July parade in Dunlap, Tenn.

A collection of the group's core members on Thursday talked about the alumni band's history, its many zany members and the lifetime of fun they've had together sharing a love of music and each other's company that started with the birth of a marching band in Sequatchie County more than 60 years ago.

Colleen Davis, Pat Goins Kerley, Carol Ann Collins, Molly Ann Hamblen and Dr. Karen Rhea Shepherd joked, laughed, traded barbs and stories about the group that formed in 1986 as the state of Tennessee celebrated its bicentennial. Hamblen is a member of the class of 1958, Collins is from the class of 1959, and Davis, Kerley and Shepherd are all from the class of 1963.

If you go

More than 10,000 people are expected at Dunlap’s Fourth of July Parade, which kicks off at 9 a.m. (CST) today on Rankin Avenue.

The women start and finish each other's sentences, filling in missing deeds and misdeeds with playful elbows and raucous laughter. The friends joined together when the first band in Sequatchie County was formed.

Bailey's Music Co. in Chattanooga approached parents about starting up a band during the 1952-1953 school year, according to Kerley and Shepherd.

The students' parents bought their instruments to get started, Shepherd said.

"We weren't originally part of the school system," Shepherd said. There was no teacher to instruct band members in school when the inaugural members joined together as elementary school students.

Collins said their parents' involvement really helped get the band off to a sound start with Louis Nelson, the band's first instructor and director. The women agreed that Nelson was a strict leader who wasn't short with his criticism.

"We were 7 years old and our fingers fit down in the holes of our clarinets so, yes, we were 'flat,'" Shepherd said, belatedly replying to Nelson's critiques.

On July 4, 1953, the fledgling band took its first trip to town on a flat-bed truck, tooling into Dunlap with their instruments still packed in their cases, she said.

That would launch the first of decades of a Fourth of July tradition in Dunlap.

"In the first year, they had the horses out in front of the band so you know everybody was trying to side step ," Davis said, ending her description with a physical demonstration of the goose-stepping motion required to dodge the mess the horses left behind.

Band alums began marching with the high-schoolers as the years rolled by, the group said.

In 1986, Tennessee was celebrating its bicentennial when Kerley established the Alumni Community Band, which would eventually consist of generations of Sequatchie High's past band members.

Eventually, the alumni band became the main band to march on the Fourth, composed of members who traveled from all over the country to join their bandmates for holiday festivities.

Nowadays, the alumni band numbers 80 or more most years. The only year they missed was 2013 when rains drowned out the parade.

Davis said the Independence Day gathering, now in its 29th year, has been an important part of their lives.

"The friendships that you form in band, they just last forever," Collins said warmly of her friends.

"And when you get out there and you hear that drum cadence start, the years just roll away," said Davis, who leads the group as one of the majorettes.

Now, as they look ahead to the future, the women say they are ready to turn over the reins to today's high school band members. So far, there's been no strong interest, the women said, but they hope that changes by the next Fourth of July parade on Rankin Avenue.

Even though they might not stride through town on July 4, 2016, they're still the same pals who had slumber parties as girls.

Shepherd joked that the group still has "slumber parties."

"We have a committee meeting and we doze off," she quipped dryly.

"We've had fun. It's been great," Kerley said.

Kerley said the words "It's been great" are printed on their last marching shirts as a fond farewell to paradegoers today.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.

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