The Drum Major Uniform
Brent Anderson provides this
story: "In 1968, KU went 10-1 and earned a trip to the Orange
Bowl. This presented a problem for the band, because the uniforms were almost
15 years old, and band members were ashamed of them -- especially since Fruhauf
Uniforms of Wichita had manufactured new ones for Penn State (KU's Orange
Bowl opponent) the year before. KU received the Bowl bid Nov. 28th; the Orange
Bowl Parade was to be on national TV on New Years Eve. They had 30 days to
design, size, manufacture, and ship them, and KU was told that it could not
be done. But somehow alumni got together and decided that the band would not
perform in Miami in the old uniforms, so they paid Fruhauf a ton of money
to shut down all production and manufacture nothing but KU's order (there
are usually about 20 orders in production at once down there). They put on
3 shifts, but it didn't look like they would be done in time..so the band
took their old ones to Miami. As the story goes, (and you might want to check
with Barnes on this) about 3 hours before the parade, a semi pulled up into
the hotel with the new suits, and many of the band members changed from the
old uniforms into the new ones on the buses on the way to the parade.
In the
scramble to get the order done, Mr. Fruhauf remembered about Christmas that
he had forgotten to design the Drum Major's uniform. And, while kicking himself
for overlooking this little detail, he discovered that it was too late to
order white fabric. So he took the blue fabric he had on hand plus some spare
trim he had in the plant, and spent Christmas night with a couple of seamstresses
designing and hand-sewing a blue Drum Major outfit.
David Koenig became Drum
Major about 1971; he was about 6'1", 210-215 lbs, and discovered that he couldn't
fit into the blue uniform, and only the old white one from the pre-Orange
bowl Days could be expanded to fit him. In 1973, Stan Love and Steve Lallier
came on as assistants, and a duplicate blue was made and capes were added,
with David using the old white (by-then somewhat yellow).
In 1974, David left
the corps, and Steve Lallier and Jim Hall were fitted with white uniforms
that could only be described as gaudy testaments to the Sr. Mr. Fruhauf's
creativity (sometime ask Jim Hall about these). They had no KU identification
at all on them, and were downright ugly. When Bruce Douglas and I came on
board in 1975, Jim wore this, and Bruce and I reverted once again to the "Orange
Bowl Blues". Steve Gordon and I also wore these in 1976.
The current style
of uniforms worn by KU Drum Majors was designed personally by the elder Mr.
Fruhauf, who was about 90 years old at the time. Steve, Clyde, and myself
drove down to Wichita, and set the specifications. We wanted a uniform that
would fit snugly in the hips, yet with room in the rear and and in the thighs
to give us room for the physical things we were required to do. We wanted
the jacket to fit fairly snug in the waist, but to broaden in the shoulder
area to give the impression of strength and power. Mr. Fruhauf got out a sketch
pad, drew it up before our eyes, then presented us with the idea of the interchangeable
parts -- the gauntlets with double baldric, with a cape as an alternative.
His grandson served as the band's uniform manager that year, and told us that
Mr. Fruhauf had toyed with the design for about 40 years; out of the thousands
of uniforms he had created, he considered the KU drum major uniform his greatest
achievement. I find it interesting that the uniform hasn't changed in 25 years,
except the cape is a bit longer, which I like."
Dave Cramer adds: "They should keep the uniform design forever. Best damn outfits I've seen...more rhinestones than Elvis."