EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a story (or "yarn" in
his words) written by Morris Whitworth and submitted to me for the Panther
Web Page. This author, by the way, prefers to be known in school circles
as "Morris Whitworth, B.B." (Before Burke)
This is a great story and I have no doubt everyone will enjoy it just as
much as I have.
.......Dana
McLaughlin Tasharski
THE BAND
by Morris Whitworth
About sixty-two years ago the shakers and movers of Jal decided that what Jal needed was a band. It was simple logic. If you have a band, you have cheerleaders; and if you have cheerleaders, that draws boys. Then you can have a good football team. At various times different ones have claimed credit for starting the move for a band, but I think that if the truth was known it was J.L. Burke. I really believe that he wanted a band for background music to his fiddle playing.
Regardless who was the originator, it was a project whose time had come. At that time the school had three musical instruments: a bass drum, a bass horn, and a piano. At that time no individual could own any one of the three because there wasn't a house large enough for any one of them. That being the case, we had to raise the money for the instruments and the uniforms. This little town turned into one giant fund-raising project and to my knowledge this was the only time that Jal was 100% behind anything. It was slow, but things came together; although some of the instruments looked like they were scavenged from the Civil War. In looking back, probably Sears, Wards, and Spiegel's had more money tied up in our band than we did. John Phillip Sousa was never as proud as we were when they marched down the street for the first time. They didn't play all that great and they didn't march too well, but they were ours-- lock, stock and barrel.
The only place our band could march was on Main Street and our concerts were held downtown with the band sitting on the sidewalk. In spite of a lack of niceties our band was playing some pretty good music and we began to get the urge to show off somewhere. Our marching had one serious flaw. Our majorettes didn't strut; and according to one wag, we looked like a Salvation Army band looking for a corner. It all came back to some of the social rules of the time. If you were strutting you were bragging, and that was in poor taste. After getting the social amenities taken care of, a long, tall, young engineer for EPNG by the name of Abie Cohen gave the girls some lessons in strutting. It was comical, but effective. He would get out in front of the marching band and prance just as if he were leading the A & M band at College Station. After the show he put on, our girls had no qualms about strutting. Once that was mastered, the Panther Band was open for dates; and one showed up right on cue. Jal received an invitation to march in the Sun Carnival Parade in El Paso.
Copyright 1997, by Morris Whitworth