Troopers regain competitive status
The Casper Troopers Drum & Bugle Corps will return to the field in 2007.
“We are very, very happy to be where we are right now,” the Troopers’ executive director, Mike Ottoes, said Wednesday.
“The future of the corps is really, really bright,” Ottoes said.
The corps, nicknamed “Wyoming’s Musical Ambassadors,” won conditional reinstatement this past weekend to compete with other large-member corps next year.
“The turn of events since last year … has been spectacular,” said Dan Acheson, director of the Chicago-area Drum Corps International. DCI serves as the governing body of drum corps events competitions and as promoter of events, he said.
“They’ve done a great job of getting their infrastructure in order and paying down their debts,” Acheson said. “That is now 100 percent up to compliance.”
The “turn of events” is a 180-degree reversal from a year ago when Ottoes announced the Troopers would not march in 2006.
It had been a hard fall, especially since the idea of the touring drum and bugle corps started in Casper a half-century ago.
“The corps really has a strong aura,” said Troopers board chairman Milward Simpson. “The stakes were really high.”
Casper resident Jim Jones founded the Troopers in 1957 and led it for 20 years. Under his direction, the Troopers earned national stature by playing at World Fairs and in presidential inaugural parades. He died in 1994 at the age of 73.
