1 10 1 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/46614/archive/files/457609361e734761e2642a960d658b6f.mp3?Expires=1792627200&Signature=C6DbiWcI8d5p3NTilyM9xiSqWOsC-Nm4q38VBDRD9Xn3MJZgVAZMUmJjQhavCvO0jtXXXWaE59mxst%7Euv%7EFJhogM41kE0TMX3pM%7EqcPQwpz3TCSDI5OfXoHnN40KqAMgNBqocvDTT-3zZSGM-VVTNi6Itv%7EUkqA%7E%7EDfpu2Cf7SJAoa0jzD66hcbB1jiYKF8ZnQYVhSfsps7I7bB0ZOkvGpNjmoN9wgJ4Hi4-Oizlf%7EVJdE6BB2PIZNM%7EtPMFEszEx0TX63U4D2a2UHZZQpeHg%7Ewv5Ho1RmdbgCSaG8BUHPLVRT8pOe0W-9KYcV9OJuf7a8WD4HttPhH03VtgQNTWaA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 4ad4df4105657befede18ed25be559e3 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/46614/archive/files/c3900f2fa961ddcf0736be8547b6f1ac.pdf?Expires=1792627200&Signature=K2k91p%7EhKB2ElUshtvSoPcvT34bpx76P4qWK0r-Fz5AzxhNDK8pEr-9xODFwjDcOOvjuT9gJCZfdZGjjX1N0hfFX8R4Mi7AVzgLRxQKC6g43hxwa-8yqQtqEGRxzfq9O%7EgdLM727TSIa03qHqFW7Nm646bypgjK3pk7PG7qR47%7EdW1hivZ4cI-1%7EFtkx%7EDUX4OP4ZID9kBoJhU%7EBEGN7iEWP-ueD1GtZZ6ijk2qySUIPTNkdKx8avw8FFfveuqPM7MdSJEYFE0xZgTFCek91LA-hZSB2npzuJLZM6XrWo9DTDodUWFKrb9vIr9aYbStsKSDPo5KeBCbv2Zb2LCfynQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a54b61fc6c2af1d9201db805dcbe0ff8 PDF Text Text Kim: Hi. I'm Kim Morey and today is Wednesday, October 22, 2014, and I will be conducting the interview. Milo: and I'm Milo Winter, and I'm going to talking a bit about the band, the high school band program first, and later on about the middle school band program in Rapid City. I'll start out with a bit of my background. I came here as a director from Beresford, South Dakota after teaching there for ten years and part of my experience there was getting back to the United States Army, was one of the last people to get drafted, and I wound up stationed in Germany with my new wife Ruth, and we had an opportunity to go behind the Iron Curtain and visit relatives, both our relatives behind the Iron Curtain and I didn't speak German at that, somewhat I and I found that a very valuable experience for later band trips with the Rapid City band. In 1967 when I came here Central was still the only high school in Rapid City and I was down at what is now the Performing Arts Building. There was many thousands, I think four thousand students there and it was very, very interesting time to be the director of that band. It was a huge program and it was almost overwhelming at times but thanks to kind-hearted people we did well we did go through the cheerleaders' tragedy, they were all, there were about eight cheerleaders were killed in a plane crash returning from the state tournament and we had no school for a week. They had funerals every day and of course the band was involved in some of that. The cheerleaders had their lockers right outside the band room and they were very kind to me as the new band director telling me what their customs were and when to play the school song, etcetera. They were beautiful young women in both looks and in personalities. I had a very difficult time. Stevens High School opened in about the fall of 1969 and we had split sections so Stevens actually went to school in the afternoons at the old Central building about till Thanksgiving or Christmas vacation and then we moved out to our new building that wasn't quite open in the fall. That was sort of interesting, half-day for each school…actually one part went from six until twelve and we went from one until seven so we had band practice in the morning, marching band practice in the morning which was kind of a fun deal, actually. In 1970, about 1970, there was a group of musicians from Eastern South Dakota. I was asked to go along as part the staff for a European band tour. I did that, and it was a fairly long trip. It was a wonderful experience for me. In about 1975 Ron Stevenson who had a music store in town had called Stevenson Music was quite a promoter and he had been promoting band festivals here which attracted bands form Canada and the United States. They were in June. They attracted bands from Europe and Canada as well as from all over the United States. Sometimes as high as thirty bands were here. One of the interesting bands was from the Amalie wind instrument factory in Czechoslovakia, behind the Iron Curtain. They were very fine bands called factory bands. They were all people that worked in the music instrument factory. Amalie was at one time almost on a level with fine violins in the world about as good as Stradivarius. They are not that high quality anymore but �anyway they made a mistake in inviting us to come see them sometime during speeches given during the festivals here. So about 1975 Ron Stevenson was the promoter of this festival and he got a grant from the Bicentennial Commission for Stevens and Central bands to go on a European tour, which we did. The Stevens band was the one that went behind the Iron Curtain into Czechoslovakia and were guests of the Amalie factory. Two of my students one morning decided they were athletes as well as musicians. One was Randy Schweizener ? and one was Vegas Stoner. They came and asked if they could go for a run just after the sun was up early in the morning on a June morning, a nice morning in Czechoslovakia. I had been shown around the city somewhat, but I had also seen, during my little tour of the city that someone took me on, I had happened to see the East German border, which was nearby. It was like you see in pictures of barbed wire and bare ground for ten or fifteen yards and machine gun towers within sight of one another, manned by two people, one with binoculars, of course, looking at you at all times. And I mentioned to the boys the factory is on the edge of town right next to sort of a forest, so I said, "Don't go north cause you'll run into the border. Run anywhere you want but stay in this area." Well, they left and they were gone for about ten minutes. They came back and they were pale. They had, of course they wanted to see, it was like a red flag for them in front of a bull. They had decided they wanted to see what the border looked like. They ran into a border guard who chambered a round in his gun and slammed his weapon right at them. He had also a dog which was snarling at them. They put their hands up and backed up until they were out of sight and then they ran back and told me the story. They also had a couple of spent shells. That’s quite an education for those young people, to really see what the Iron Curtain is like, behind the Iron Curtain is like. We also went to a place called Baden-Baden which is a resort nearby where people would go to probably to get rehabilitation from the alcoholism. Anyway, there were a couple of East German soldiers or security people walking around and a couple of, one of our sophomore girls stopped and took a picture of him with her camera. He walked up and grabbed the camera, opened it up, took the film out, stomped on the film on the sidewalk and smiled at her and informed in their language and handed her the, what was kind of left of the camera which was all open and so forth. So the kids had quite a few things to think about. One other adventure that Stevens and Central bands went on and by the way those European tours are still going on today. They still, both bands tour extensively about once every two or three years with the orchestra. We were also involved with a marching band show with the Broncos at half-time in Denver. And so we went and did that and it was an interesting experience for our kids, too. We were waiting in the end zone to come on and this was an old mile high stadium and there was a screen up behind us pretty close to the end zone, we were close to the cheap seats waiting for the end zone. Denver came down and was attempting to tie up the score and it was I think third and three, third and goal I should say and they fumbled. And so the people behind us were very unhappy and the booze rained down on us as did the beer because they put their beer mugs against the screen. The cups didn't get us but the beer did. So I had a �band drenched in beer (laughter.) through the half time. So those were some of the things that people don't tell you tell you about in education classes at Augustana College. Since, once Stevens and Central split, the bands had a really a very cordial relationship through the years. One of the things that makes us really proud is the effect that we had that for many years we had, and still have some Rapid City students that went away to school to Nebraska or Missouri or wherever and came back to teach. Mark Graves was at Central High School, Don Young had his Master's at University of Illinois and is back at Stevens as a conductor and of course, Bruce Knowles is our local boy and he's back doing the orchestra at Central. So it's a good thing when your closest competitor is also one of your best friends. That's really unusual, I think, so we're very thankful. Kim: Anything else you can think about the... Has there always been a band .......tour or was that something that happened later on? I had, my older daughter went to what I think they call the "White Night Tour," where they went to Leningrad when it was still Leningrad, and went into the uh, I was asked to chaperone, was still active duty Air Force and my boss was not too excited about that but going beyond what I needed to, what I was curious about is, do you recall when they started and when they had the combined tours? Milo: The first one was combined. That would have been about in 1975, I believe because it was by the Bicentennial. We invited people here for the Bicentennial that was probably the first one. Since then we've gone usually separately because it's difficult to get an airplane big enough to take that many people at one time. The first time we went we had a charter aircraft that came in. I remember it was so full that we had to wait for two hours for the temperature to drop so the airplane could be sure to take off on a short runway at the municipal airport. The temperature had to be fifty degrees or less or whatever it was. So the orchestra and band I think each orchestra and band traveled separately because of that. Kim: That's a wonderful opportunity. Milo: Well it just changes students' outlooks a lot once you experience both the good part and the bad part of European living, to see the, uh, the first time we went behind the Iron Curtain was, the kids cheered when we came out, when we crossed the border when we were getting back into Austria, I'll put it that way. �Kim: Yeah, my daughter had a similar experience with that. Milo: And they were in Russia, I think. Kim: Yeah they went to Leningrad and Moscow. Milo: And I'll say this, music is a wonderful way to get to know people. It's a little different. You bring them something of your own to give. And so somehow you cross a bridge of being a stranger. It's much easier than if you're just a tourist. It's a much different feeling. On a lot of outtrips, we made four to Germany and to Europe and two to the Pacific, one to Australia and New Zealand, and one to just Hawaii. But the European trips were particularly good, I think, to see the good and the bad, and to learn. It was my older daughter that went to on the Australia and New Zealand trip. She has fond memories of that. Maybe I don't tell this, it's... it's a funny memory, I guess. In the United States, we have fanny packs and someone lost their fanny pack in Australia and groups of high school students were running around trying to get people to help them find their fanny pack which I learned was an extremely vulgar term in Australia. We were going to a town and of course all the young blood would turn out to see all these young high school students coming from America because of course they were curious and so forth. The custom there was they would raise their index finger and wave "you're number one," and we were, the students at first waved back and I hadn't thought to tell them that I knew that the index finger raised like that means you're inquiring about the male ability of anybody. "Would you like to get better acquainted?" put it that way. And if you raise the finger back in return that tells them, "that's it" and so I had to straighten our students out that it was probably not a gesture that should be returned. So that was differences in culture sometimes. Kim: Tremendous education in many, many ways. And I think that the experience of when you go to play music. It’s sharing on a very human level, a very universal human appreciation. �Milo: We found that a lot of Europeans' idea of Americans, teenagers, particularly was from what they see in Walt Disney movies. Very often teenagers are depicted sort of as brainless oafs. I'll sorry but that's the way it is. It was usually found at their skill level, and so it helped our image, I think we did a good job of representing the United States. Two people that saw us wanted to converse I think that was a good thing. That was another thing that we wanted to do was erase that idea of teenagers being rather mindless and spoiled and so forth that I think the movies often portray. Kim: Shall we go to the Municipal band? Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. Milo: Prior to 1917, the band in Rapid City, the municipal band such as it was, was a combination of something like a National Guard it had a little different name but it was a military installation and it was at where the National Guard camp is now. They did have a small band and they would on holidays and Fourth of July get together, had a few local people who could play and they would do concerts, not on a regular basis. But in 1917 they became organized a little bit more seriously and it was a municipal band mostly and augmented with a few professional soldiers from the military. The early directors included a man named Douglas Reard in 1934 and LaVernon Malone was hired a little bit later in about 1934. The city passed a one mil tax writing to fund the municipal band orchestra and chorus. I don't think it has ever been rescinded I think they have a little bit of a back log there. The city has done a nice job of supporting that ever since. Most of those groups do not do a lot of outside fundraising because we are city, at least the municipal band is not. The orchestra does some outside fundraising. I think maybe the chorus does too, but the municipal band is primarily, the charter says, “free concerts for the public. “So anybody can come and we have done that. The main season for the municipal band involves concerts at the park in the summer, and that's open to anybody that would, wants to come for us and they are free. Also the city band has been called upon for special occasions such as at the time of the flood. In 1972 they did play for the flood memorial service. And we did a flood memorial this past year, too the anniversary, we as the municipal band we played some of the same music that we played for that. I think that the original memorial service was out at Stevens High School auditorium because that was not touched by the flood at all so that was one of the few buildings that was available. They split the directorship of the Rapid City Municipal band in about 1970. Ron Best had been directing it and he was retiring. Jack and I looked at the thing and sort of talked it over and since we were doing some travel at that time and looking for that sort of thing, uh we were going to be gone in the summer in addition and sometimes summer school and so forth so we had to be gone �at times, and we thought it would be a good idea to be backed up by one another and that's how it turned out. I'm going to digress here for just a little bit. Some of the other directors were Vernon Malone he was hired after this mill levy came in to direct the orchestra and the band for quite a while. He unfortunately died of a heart attack at a fairly young age. Then Alex Snyder was one of the early directors. Arnold Rudd was the orchestra and band director for a while and Ron Best until 1970 when Jack Knowles and I took it over I retired only before I did 42 seasons and I retired in 2012. The idea of multiple directors of that group has been continued. When Jack retired we opened up his spot and four of the people in the band that were experienced directors did a guest directorship and then the band voted on who to take and the band almost announced "Let's take all four of them! So I split several seasons with the four directors. I did four concerts and Mark Graves, Don Downs, Bill Evans, Gary Hanson each did one then I retired and they just took it over. That works quite well. They're all a little bit different and their programming and a little different style. So it's fun for the band and I think fun for the audience as well. It's kind of unique, I think, it seems to be working quite well. A little bit about the band-shell, in the 1970’s for about ten years we did most of our concerts off the show-mobile that belonged to the Central States Fair. About 40 to 42 people is all that could hold. It was quite crowded. It was great for sound. In the flood of '72 we were out at Canyon Lake Park because we did a lot of concerts there, but then we moved to what is now Memorial Park or that area at least, different places and also one of the parks on the east side, different parks. But the Memorial Park band-shell was built it was deep because we could expand the arranged position of the band to full instrumentation and opened a lot of literature possibilities and that has been more convenient for the musicians and everyone and that is why I think the old show-mobile worked good for its time. The municipal band has survived a lot of political cuts as in all the groups and so we're grateful that the city has seen the importance of keeping that alive, I think, and so we're grateful although sometimes it's been a little bit of a struggle. Our budget is still considerably less than the, for example, Sioux Falls municipal band but we're surviving and I think, thriving and that's the good news. Anything else? Kim: Do you have a particular favorite concert, or performance, memory from either high school or, I bet the halftime at the Bronco's game certainly has a lot of interesting memories but I was wondering if there are any particular stand-outs. Milo: Playing at Mount Rushmore is always good. Unfortunately, it’s very expensive, costs a lot of money to do that now. In the old days they used to even give us a little bit of travel money to play there, but then that's sort of a special place to play and to conduct. I think I probably is, and �of course special events like the flood incident and the memorial for the flood are those kind of special times. And by the way, during the flood I don't think we missed a week of concerts here, the concerts were what to do, even It seemed like that was something that had some degree of normalcy to it when the town was all torn up and grieving and a mess. It seemed like that was something that helped people and I think people appreciated that. Kim: Where did you do the concerts in between times? Milo: I think we were using the show-mobile at that time. Kim: So you found another place to set up the band. Obviously Memorial Park wasn't here yet and Canyon Lake Park was wiped out. Milo: Yeah, I don't remember where it was, probably an area down towards where the city center is, in that spot down there someplace. I think maybe next to, let's see, I don't think Central High School was built. The nice thing about that was the show-mobile was portable so they could, they drove us anywhere. I just don't remember that. Each concert had its memorable moments sometimes. Kim: The timing of the flood was such that the schools had just recently taken a summer recess. Do you have any particular memories of starting school in the fall of '72? Milo: No, I think pretty much it was back to normal. As I recall the marching band, I think, at that time and because we had been marching down at the Stevens band practice band was at Sioux Park and I believe we practiced on the National Guards grounds someplace, I think on the parade ground and marked the football field off as best we could up there. I had forgotten all about that. I'm glad you brought that up. Kim: I always try to tread lightly on flood memories because they can be very, there can be a lot of pain associated with those as well, but there are those things, you know that might go unrecorded that you did continue the summer concerts here. It's probably recorded somewhere but that's a testament to the resilience of the people and the human spirit in general. �Milo: Some of our music did get wet that was stored in the facilities of the park, but not the good instruments or nothing significant was lost which is really unusual, and very lucky. I think probably the most memorable, one of the most memorable things I did that did involve the municipal band with the high school band, we were the first band high school band to ever be, to appear in the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. They only take about twelve bands from the United States and so we have to apply and be invited and that was a great honor. And then to actually march six and a half miles, and four million people see you live, and who knows how many million on television. That was probably the most exciting and unusual event that we did, that was in 1987. Kim: I recall that. That was a big event. There are far, far more high school bands that haven't done that.... Milo: And they treat the bands so well there. In most parades you're sort of cannon fodder, to be honest about it, you're just part of the parade and so forth, but they treat you like honored guests. And so they have it down to a science that was a very fun surprise. Kim: I see you have a municipal band book here with some entries... Milo: These are the minutes starting in 1918 and the who bought what and who had to send in bills for band shirts and so forth so it's very interesting. Kim: Can you tell me a little bit about the administration of the band? There is the performance but there is the making sure they... Milo: At first the city wasn't involved until 1934. So they would elect a board, a band president and they would hire whatever conductor they could find whenever they could, for instance, the first one, Douglas Reader in 1934 came from Sioux City somewhere, so they went out of town to find people and to do this. So that was a big part of their job, to get a director, and then the fund the uniforms and whatever musical instruments that weren't privately owned they had to buy and so forth. Then in 1934 with the city mill levy was ....it wasn't a fundraising problem so much. �We used the city funds and for instance, when Jack and I did it, we were actually the administrators of it. We did the payroll and decided who got what and so forth and so on. We decided how to spend the money then we reported back to the city. We reported back to the city. That was part of the job description was the managing the business part of the thing. Kim: Did you have a board of directors? Milo: No, we had sort of an ad hoc committee. Pretty much they would usually elect three people that represent the members, and so, for instance when we changed directorships or there was a change in that, we had three elected people to oversee that or to act as an advisory board. A name that's very noticeable in the last half of this book is Marvin Keck because he was the secretary for a long, long time. And so that's kind of interesting. There are some reports in here of annual meetings and so forth that are still, uh, here, here's a picture, I drew the picture, you can see the picture, if you can see that on the tape of course, I had this in the Journal several times but down at the, there was an old sort of a band shell down at Sioux Park, no, not Sioux Park. Canyon Lake Park.anyway... Kim: oh yeah Milo: This is, there is an old building, that building got destroyed in the flood. Kim: Oh wow. That looks a lot like what was the old Pioneer Museum on West Boulevard Milo: Oh maybe that's what it is. You think that's where it is? Kim: It looks a lot like it. Milo: They had concerts there. I heard a concert there when I was a tourist out here one time. I remember that. I think you're right. Kim: I don't recognize this dormer, I think maybe it got damaged and taken off, but the style looks very much like that. Milo: I think the concrete slab maybe made me think it was. Kim: There’s, it looks like some stone work. �Milo: I think that was that, that old building in Canyon Lake Park. I think it was. Kim: It could well be. It's was probably a works project. Milo: Probably set along the same lines. Kim: Yeah, very similar style, but I don't believe that I recognize this facade as any part of the one right here on West Boulevard. Milo: But they did have concerts there. I remember that. Arne Rudd was the conductor there. I don't know if you remember him or not. Kim. Yeah, the name is really familiar Milo: He was of course quite an accomplished violinist as well. Kim: I think that might be why I know his name. Milo: I think he did some teaching. Kim: He's gone now? Milo: Yeah. He moved away I think. I forgot. He's died, I'm sure. Kim: Yeah. You know how long ago that was. Milo: I believe he might have been a guest performer with the Black Hills Symphony. Mix. Could have. And he did the Black Hills Orchestra sometimes as well as the band. Kim: Well, we do, at some point in time we hope to have the potential to put audio clips or, not audio clips but audio and video, and there may be some opportunities for us to pair up some images with the interviews. If that is the case I'll make a note that if we could possibly scan that photo. Milo: Sure. Somebody sent that to me. It's the only picture I have of the older municipal band. That's the only one. Kim: Yeah. Milo: That's about all the material I have. I'm just scanning to see if that's it, I don't think I've �forgotten anything that I have down here. Kim. In each one of these interviews I'm given the privilege of being involved with, it's an absolutely wonderful event to get to learn more about the town and the people who made the town and I really appreciate your time. I know that persons who listen to this in the future will as well. Milo: Well thank you. I wasn't sure who'd be interested in what here. I haven't done anything quite like this before. Kim: I'll end the recording � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interviews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rapid City Public Library Description An account of the resource Oral Histories recorded for the Rapid City Oral History Project by Rapid City Public Library Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Milo Winter Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Kim Morey Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 32:11 Location The location of the interview Rapid City Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview: Milo Winter Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-09-10 Subject The topic of the resource Rapid City, South Dakota, Oral History, Stevens High School , Rapid City Municipal Band, Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Yes Description An account of the resource Milo Winter shares memories from directing the Stevens High School and Municipal Band. Special events include playing halftime at a Broncos game, performing at Mt. Rushmore and trips to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 291194 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rapid City Oral History Project Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Rapid City Public Library Oral History Rapid City Rapid City Municipal Band South Dakota Stevens High School