Pastime: More on those “Singing Majorettes”

(Top row) Karen Johnson, Stephanie Woodard and Gayle Green (Bottom row) Sharon Trussell, Lucinda Miles, Jane Davis and drum major Terri Lassiter.

By Maylon Rice

As is often the case with a Pastime – another memory immediately starts a new one.

After writing about the “Southern Fried Chicken” served at every Band Banquet following Marching Season each fall, Gloria Williams Alpe, now of Bentonville, followed a social media post saying she and a couple of others in her class – Becky Russell Stephens among the  others -  remembered more about those “Singing Majorettes.”

Just to solidify the fact about the “Southern Fried Chicken,” was the banquet staple, Gloria found in her scrapbook, the 1964-66 band banquet programs. Each was run off  on the high school office spirit master copying images on orange construction paper for covers with a thin piece of white paper again run through the wet spirit master printer -  for a program, stapled to these decorative covers.

And each menu in that grouping of 4 programs – featured as the entrée  “Southern Fried Chicken.”  

That made us all laugh as we thought about eating Southern Fried Chicken each and every year.

Some majorettes on the post, from the early to mid-1960s group, also recalled that Dave Spakes and his downtown crew of cooks and servers, catered one or two of those early 1960s fetes, and was the chef for the chicken dinner.

Dave Spakes was in aluminum like single counter  diner, that later had a larger a back room for dining, right in the middle of Main Street. He later moved down and around the block, just past the Warren Bank on Main on Cypress Street.

Left to right) Gayle Green, Lucinda Miles, Jane Davis, drum major Terri Lassiter  Sharon Trussell, Stephanie Woodard and Karen Johnson

He, too, could cook a good leg of fried chicken, but I dearly loved his “hamburger steaks.”

By the time, I got to lugging a baritone and later a  tuba (I played cymbals my freshman year), Ms. Ruby Carraway was in charge of serving up the chicken dinners.

Now back to portion of the band banquet that held world-class entertainment.

But, as a young lad,  I was mostly captivated by the “Singing Majorettes,” on nearly every program.

The majorettes in the Warren High School Band, year after year, were “knock-outs.: All of the majorettes were good looking young ladies and some of the best good looking young ladies of their particular class at WHS.

A cheery little musical introduction with a smart and sharp piano accompaniment played by Mrs. Mary Lou Martin, began the programs with this little harmonic verse…

We are the singing majorettes,

We are the singing majorettes,

We can dance and twirl, and twist and whirl

But now we’re going to sing – 

And, man on man, sing they did ever.

Not in order: Gloria Williams, Debbie Williams, Becky Russell, Kay Wood, Nancy Brooks, Jo Ellen Lowery, and Debbie Lassiter.

Gloria Williams Alpe recalls one year they group sang, “Lonesome Town,” a Top of the Charts, No. 1 hit by that teen crooner and TV star -  Ricky Nelson.

Another year, the majorette sang, “More,” by some mysterious new singer named Bobby Darin.

Just imagine, if you can, singing both these early 1960s hit songs were such songbirds as:

Patty Marsh, Pam Reynolds, Gloria Williams, Debbie Williams, Becky Russell, Kay Wood, Nancy Brooks. 

Then the very next year, add into that chorus, Robin Richardson.

In the 1967/68 school years  were: Gloria Williams, Debbie Williams, Becky Russell, Kay Wood, Nancy Brooks, Jo Ellen Lowery, and Debbie Lassiter.

Stephanie Woodard, center Drum Major Terri Lassiter and Lucinda Miles

As the four years of my turn in the WHS Band rolled around, the singers were (and not in any order) : Cindy Mash, Terri Lassiter (who was drum major for two years maybe three), Lucinda Miles, Ruth Herring, Jane Davis, Sharon Trussell, Stephanie Woodard, Gayle Green, Karen Johnson, Paula Whittten, Jonalin Bryant (also a drum major) Regina Reep, Barbara Bryant, Glenda Johnson  and Ann Spraggins and  I am sure I am missing some others, so please, ladies forgive me if I have omitted your names.

One of the top pop hits in the early 1970s, I recall hearing this all female chorus singing was James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a  Friend,” and also, Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

As an anomaly in the Nov. 9th 1972 program, Pete Parnell and Lynn McMurry – a wonderful duo – sang for the group, as did the “Singing Majorettes.”

What tune, Pete and Lynn sang, escapes me.

I don’t have a 1971 program, but I would almost swear that Johnny McBee and Jana Durmon sang a duo that evening with Johnny playing the string bass as Jana and her guitar accompanied. Maybe it was “Rainy Days and Mondays,” by the Carpenters, or something soulful of that same genre.

And we all ate “Southern Fried Chicken,” watched a color film of the band marching at a contest site somewhere on the road and heard from an outstanding musical professor from one of the state’s colleges.

Still it is a Pastime I still savor these many, many years later.