Quad City Knights

The **Quad City Knights** (also known as the Kewanee Black Knights; the Geneseo Knights) were a Junior Drum Corps from the Quad Cities are in Illinois and Iowa.

## History

The origin of The Knights actually goes back to a boy's fife and drum corps
formed in the 1930's sponsored by the American Legion Post in Kewanee,
Illinois. Within a short time the fifes were replaced by bugles and the
S.A.L. (Sons of American Legion) Junior Drum and Bugle Corps was formed. That
corps competed actively through 1942 when World War II took most of the
members.

A few years after the war, interest in drum corps began again and the boys
of the SAL corps were now men and a senior corps was formed in 1949. With
the help of the Kewanee American Legion, the corps raised money for
instruments and new uniforms and in 1951 the name Kewanee Black Knights was
chosen. The Black Knights became a familiar corps on the state and national
scene from 1951 to 1964. They were longtime rivals of the Skokie IL Indians for the Illinois State title. In addition to many local championships, the Black
Knights finished in the American Legion National finals (top 12) every year
from 1954 through 1961. The senior corps was disbanded in 1964. About a year
later, one of the former senior members, Marshall Heene, felt that the area
still needed a drum corps and he promoted the idea of forming a junior
corps. In the winter of 1965-66, the idea became a reality. He contacted
several of the former senior members who had been active and helped teach as
well as play to be the instruction staff and the Black Knights junior corps
was born. The junior corps became successful early on, in fact they made the
finals in the 1966 Illinois State Fair competition and didn¹t have a finals
show. At that time, a corps learned a preliminary show of 7 minutes and a
final show of 11 to 13 minutes. That first summer the staff conceived and
taught a 7 minute show mainly to acquaint the new members with the drum corps
activity. They entered them in the State Fair competition for the experience
of being judged and seeing other corps from around the State. When they
unexpectly made the finals they had no choice but to do the short show again
and take the undertime penalty, but the fact that the Black Knights were a
viable drum corps was established that summer of 1966. In the 30 years that
followed, at one time or another, they defeated every corps (except the
Royalaires) in Illinois and most everyone in the midwest.

The Black Knights of Kewanee dropped the Black from their name in 1972.
There was always confusion with another junior corps from Belleville that
was also named the Black Knights and, in addition, the corps was interested
in broadening their program possibilities. This was much easier with just
the name The Knights. The Knights were not one of the "premier corps" so
some of the innovations they brought to the activity were not given as much
attention, but one of these "firsts" was to abandon the traditional cadet
uniform in favor of a "uniform costume" that depicted the name of the corps
as well as the music they were playing in their program. They adopted a
uniform consisting of a knight's tunic with a cross and a robin hood hat and
played selections from the musical Camelot. Several years later the
Cavaliers and Phantom Regiment both followed suit and adopted uniforms more
in keeping with their name.

The corps was moved from Kewanee to Geneseo after the 1973 season. Reasons
for the move were both financial and membership. Membership had dwindled
in the Kewanee area and grown considerably in the Geneseo and Quad City area
and it was hoped that the move to Geneseo would give new life to the corps.
This hope turned out to be true. Under the direction of Ken Hamilton
(Director 1973-81), The Knights attained national status, a position they
were to maintain through the 1980's. One of the principle music arrangers
for the corps was Larry Kerchner who did most of the arrangements from the
late 1960's through the mid 80's. Ken Norman also did some arranging for
the Corps. It has been mentioned that The Knights were always innovative and
another example was presented in their 1979 show. Prior to a number called
"Slavanic Dance" four of their guard girls disappeared into the percussion
section and reappeared in full Hungarian costumes and danced to the music.
They went back into the percussion section to change back into their guard
uniforms while the show continued and many times the audience was not aware
where they went. Costume changes like this are done frequently now but , as
far we know, this kind of presentation had not been performed before The
Knights did it in 1979.

By 1980, the membership and talent of the Corps had grown to a point where
it was decided that their next objective was to become a DCI touring corps.
Although the Corps had made week-long trips to Boston, Miami, and Texas,
taking on the responsibility of touring most of the summer was a new and
exciting challenge. Three 4106 busses were purchased as well as a used 18
wheel trailer which the staff customized for all the corps equipment. (A
food trailer was added a few years later). One of the first tours involved a
trip to the West coast for a series of shows starting in Utah, over to the
San Francisco area, down to Los Angeles and Las Vegas on the way back. A lot
of things were learned on that first tour. We learned how to handle real
hardship when the motor on one of the busses "locked up" in Wyoming on the
way out and other travel arrangements had to be made for a third of the
corps for the rest of the tour The inconvenience was offset somewhat by
performing in these new cities plus a special performance at Disneyland. For
the next decade the Corps became a regular in DCI and DCM contests anywhere
and everywhere in the U.S. and Canada.

The most successful season was probably 1983. The Corps was marching 122
members and was recognized as a viable competitor. They placed third in DCM
finals just behind Madison and Phantom Regiment , were 9th at DCI regional
prelims in Whitewater, which was significant because all the corps in DCI
were there, and also came in among the leaders at DCI East in Allentown, Pa.
It was a real disappointment when they failed to make the finals at the DCI
championships a month later after being in a such a good position in those
DCI regionals.. Because of the success of the Corps that year, I was named
"Director of the Year" by Drum Corps Midwest. This was a tremendous honor
and the reality was that I was fortunate to represent a truly outstanding
group of people consisting of a dedicated and talented staff, a great group
of talented young people and an untiring support staff. DCI decided to
recognize support people at the Championships, and over the next several
years The Knights had Gene Herring, Dorothy Johnson, and Wayne Huntley
recognized for their work and dedication.

In 1984, the Knights marched a smaller but equally talented corps and
introduced another innovation in their program. In one of the last
productions of the show, they featured a boy and girl from the guard in a
solo dance number. This has become commonplace now but it was unique in

1985 brougnt about another major change for the Corps. It was decided to
present "Jesus Christ, Superstar" and, typical of the Knights to try
something new, they completely changed their uniforms to a cadet style in
purple and silver with a large cross on the chest and shakoes with plumes.
This was quite a surprise to the other corps they had competed against
because early on some didn't know who they were! This uniform became so
popular that the Corps continued to wear it, or a variation of it, for the remainder
of their existence. That year was significant also because of a last minute situation
that prevented Larry Kerchner from doing the arrangements. Gregg Neuleib, who
was Knights Director at the time and had done some arranging but nothing as ambitious as a complete book of a show like Superstar, stepped in and wrote the show. The result was a complete success and Gregg continued to do arrangement for the Knights.

The Knights were very active in sponsoring shows which gave local audiences
an opportunity to see corps from all over the country and give work to
fellow corps. The Spectacle of Brass in Geneseo ran for 20 years starting in
1969, and a second show, Pagaent of Drums, in Davenport/Bettendof, Iowa, was
started in 1985 and continued until the Knights went inactive in the
mid-90's. Both shows were well received and are still mentioned as one the most entertaining events to come to the Quad City area.

It was decided to move the Corps to the Quad Cities in 1989. Geneseo was
just not a large enough community to continue to finance a competitive drum
corps, while the Quad Cities (with a combined population of over 300,000 and
only 25 miles away) could provide a much larger base for fund raising and
local membership. It was hoped that this could bring the Corps back to the
success it had enjoyed in the early and mid 80's. Unfortunately, this did
not prove to be a reality. In 1991, because of dwindling membership and
struggling finances, The Knights decided to merge with another corps
(Emerald Knights) in nearby Cedar Rapids, Ia. who were having similiar
problems. This merger was, by agreement of both Corps, to be for one season
only and then a decision would be made if it should continue. After the
season, both corps were in agreement that the merger did not work and
decided to go on as they had before. Although small in numbers, the next
several years would show that The Knights would continue to put a solid
program on the field, and they continued to be a DCI /DCM touring corps
performing everywhere. In 1992, they played music from the movie "Robin Hood"
which was well received and the following year they brought back Jesus
Christ Superstar which earned them 4th place at DCI Championships in
Division III. This was significant since earlier in the season they had the
kind of bus accident Corps don¹t like to think about. They were on their way
to a show in Ohio when a car traveling at excessive speed ran a stop sign
and hit one of the corps busses broadside sending it rolling down an large
embankment . The driver of the car was killed instantly but miraculously there were no corps fatalities: only bruises and a few broken bones.

The Knights went inactive in 1995 and their last competition was at the
Illinois State Fair which was ironic since their very first competition 29
years earlier (1966) was in that same show!!

## Traditions

During the 1980's, and possibly earlier, the drum major would yell "What time is it?", to which the corps would reply "Knight Time!"