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Hudson, Leonard Myles "Doc" (1942 -
2010): Drum Major Emeritus, Newport News Police Pipes &
Drums
24 April 2010
Doc was a lifelong resident of Newport News, VA. After
serving in the USMC (Lance Corporal), Doc joined the Newport
News Police Department and rose to the position of Detective.
He retired after 30 years of service. Doc was the Drum
Major of the Newport News Police Pipes & Drums.
Leonard, Joseph "Joe" Michael
(1929 - 2010):
Drum Major, Phoenix Scottish Pipe Band
March 11, 2010
Joe was Drum Major of the Phoenix Scottish Pipe Band from the
1960s well into the 21st century, where he also played bass drum
and tenor drum. He was a huge supporter of pipe
bands in the southwestern United States, especially in how he
encouraged kids to learn pipes or drums. He gave
many of us our first kilt or helped us find our first set of
bagpipes! Joe will be sorely missed by all of us.
[by Kevin MacHeffner Conquest]
McGlashan, Ron (1947 - 2008): Drum Major, Irish
Pipers of San Francisco
June 19, 2008
The Irish Pipers of San Francisco
is mourning the loss of Our Beloved Drum Major, Ron McGlashan.
He passed away last night at about 10:44 pm peacefully his
friends Alex, Marcia, Norman his brother and John his nephew
were there. Father Gould came again to pray. Sacraments were
given the night before. All tubes but the small breathing tube
were removed.
Ron requested earlier that he wanted a strawberry milkshake and
a Coke. We gave him a taste of coke. Alex stopped at Mel's
dinner on the way to the hospital got the Deluxe Shake with all
the works. Ron just loved it. He had his Amazing Grace playing
with the bagpipes in the background.
Funeral arrangements will be made this morning. Please pass the
word along. [by
Michael LeBouef]
Davidson, Don (1929 - 2005): Drum Major,
Leathernecks Pipes & Drums
Monday, December 19, 2005
BY GEORGE BERKIN
Star-Ledger Staff
Even now,
more than 40 years later, the photograph by Don Davidson goes
right to the gut. The parents
of Andrew Goodman, one of three civil right workers slain in
Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964, are entwined in
grief as their son's body is removed from an plane at Newark
Airport. Taken in
August of that year, two months after Goodman disappeared, the
photo was selected by the Associated Press as one of the best of
the 20th century.
Dr.
Davidson, a former Marine who raised a generation of news
photographers as the founder of New Jersey Newsphotos and
mentored two Pulitzer Prize winners, died Friday December 16,
2005. He was 76 (born August 25, 1929). A former
photographer for the Associated Press, Dr. Davidson began New
Jersey Newsphotos in the mid-1960s when Mort Pye, the late
editor of The Star-Ledger, suggested the idea. The
photographs were supplied directly to The Star-Ledger, and Newsphotos had more than 50 photographers and five editors.
During the
Korean War, he was one of the "Frozen Chosin," some 8,000 U.S.
fighters, mostly Marines, who marched over 75 hazardous miles
around a frozen reservoir to escape from 120,000 Chinese
soldiers in November 1950, during the coldest year in 100 years. And during
the Vietnam War, Dr. Davidson also went overseas, but that was
to investigate what was happening to missing body bags.
The bags were being used to ship drugs
So proud of
his military service was Dr. Davidson that he enjoyed getting
into his Marine uniform for military holidays, from Veterans Day
to Memorial Day. He also was a drum major in the
Leathernecks Pipe & Drum Band, playing around the world.
While
running Newsphotos, Dr. Davidson began a third career. A
graduate of New York University, he also graduated from NYU's
medical school and practiced forensic medicine. We is buried is in Denville Cemetery.
Falana, Hustus
"Frank," III (1948 - 2006): Drum Major, Manchester Pipes and Drums
A commanding figure known
prominently in Hartford's law enforcement, fire fighting and
military communities and volunteer organizations died December
22, 2006 in Hartford. He served in the United States Air
Force, the United States Army Airborne Division, the United
States Marshal Service, the Manchester Pipe and Drum Corp, the
Governor's Horse Guard, the Wethersfield Fire Department, the
Hartford Chapter of the Connecticut Board of Approved Umpires,
the American Softball Association of Umpires and the Shriners,
among many other organizations.
A native son of Isle of Hope, GA,
Frank was born on May 27, 1948 in Savannah, GA. Frank
served in Panama, Granada, and Desert Storm and
was employed by the United States Federal
Government as a U.S. Marshal. He was honored as the Grand Marshal for
the Connecticut Veteran's Day Parade of 2006. Besides
many other honors, he served as a liaison to the U. S.
Merchant Marine Academy and was awarded the Air Force
Achievement Medal.
His spare time was usually spent
in the service of others. Frank enjoyed working with young
people and will be remembered by many as a football and baseball
coach as well as a mentor. He was buried with full military honors at
the Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, GA.
McCutcheon, Bill: Drum
Major, Toronto Police Pipe Band
CATHERINE DUNPHY
The Toronto Star
14 February 2005
For years
he was the leader of the parade. Metro Toronto Police
Pipe Band Drum Major Bill McCutcheon was at the head of the
Santa Claus parades, Labour Day parades, Warrior Day parades,
Grey Cup parades, the march past at the Police Games, the
opening of the Royal Winter Fair and Kitchener-Waterloo's
Oktoberfests.
At the annual Police
Games held on summer nights at the Canadian National Exhibition,
he led the march past; during the popular Musical Ride, the
force's mounted unit did the charge straight at McCutcheon,
standing two or three paces ahead of his band. The crowd always
erupted as the horses stopped at what looked like just 10 metres
before the man holding his ground with his mace held high.
McCutcheon was a young police officer in neighbouring downtown
precincts when he signed up for a newly revived Metro Toronto
Pipe and Drum Band in 1964. Originally started by Thomas Ross in
1912, the marching band was disbanded in 1939, when Canada went
to war. In a nod to its history and its original founder, the
new police band chose the red Ross plaid as its official tartan.
Within months of joining, McCutcheon
was elected drum major, responsible for not only leading the
parade but also for the dress, deportment and discipline of the 40 to 50 members.
McCutcheon retired from the band in 1975, when he retired from
the police, but he kept
marching at the head of the pack for the Ontario Royal Canadian
Legion Pipes, Drums and Colours. A year earlier, he
had been asked to lead the Legion massed bands at Florida's New
Year's Eve Rose Bowl parade, a huge honour at a time when the
streets were painted white for the televised nighttime parade. He returned two more times: in 1976 and then in 1991.
In 1978, McCutcheon
led the Ontario Royal Canadian Legion Pipes, Drums and Colours
along the 10-kilometre route of the Tournament of Roses Parade,
lined with 1.5 million cheering spectators in California. They
made repeat appearances in 1981, 1989 (when McCutcheon had just
undergone treatment for cancer of the colon six weeks before)
and in 1994.
They marched the
dusty main street of Tijuana, Mexico, and in the Cavalcade
Parade down Princes St. in Edinburgh. They were cheered at the
Punch Bowl and Hula Bowl in Hawaii. The first time they appeared
at Braemar, they marched past the Duke of Fife because Queen
Elizabeth was mourning the assassination of her uncle, Lord
Louis Mountbatten, but on their third tour of Scotland in 1990,
it was the royal couple on the stand. But McCutcheon's
favourite parade was always Toronto's Santa Claus Parade. No
contest.
The son of a
streetcar driver, McCutcheon grew up in west Toronto. He always
loved uniforms: he belonged to the Boys Brigade and, when he was
17, he lied about his age to enlist in the air force but never
saw any overseas action, much to his disgust. A neighbour
suggested he join the police. The neighbour was Jack Ackroyd who
would go on to become Toronto's chief of police. He loved being
a police officer, but it was when he joined the pipe band and
later the policemen's chorus that he combined both his passions.
Possessed of a spectacular rich bass voice, he had long sung at
church minstrel shows and as a soloist in the choir at then
Westmoreland United Church. During his 28 years with the force,
he sang the national anthem at the Police Games and was the
soloist at the annual police Remembrance Day ceremony at Yorkminster United Church.
At his funeral,
members of the Toronto police chief's ceremonial unit were
honorary guards and fellow police war veterans the pallbearers. A piper played behind the hearse and at the gravesite.
The family buried him
with the mace he had carried for more than 40 years.
It was their way to
ensure that he got to lead his last parade.
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