The Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps is a World Class competitive junior drum and bugle corps based in Madison, Wisconsin. The Madison Scouts are one of the thirteen founding member corps of Drum Corps International (DCI) and a two-time DCI World Champion. Entering the 2024 season, the Madison Scouts are currently the oldest continuously active junior corps.
Until 2018, they had remained one of only two all-male corps alongside The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps. In 2019, the Madison Scouts adopted a non-discrimination policy that expanded membership for all gender identities to participate in the Madison Scouts, making the corps co-ed.
History
The corps originated on December 3, 1920 under the direction of Lewis Kessler and maintained an active performance schedule through the end of 1925.
Leadership changes in the Council combined with flagging participation in Scouting resulted in the corps activity being paused in the fall of 1925. Attempts were made in 1928 and 1930 to restart the corps but to no avail, likely hampered by the Great Depression. A revitalization of the Council began in 1935, which saw the return of Lewis Kessler's involvement.
In October 1937, the Four Lakes Council began to actively recruit members to restart the corps. The 1938 revival would have E. J. Hess as its director and Clarence H. Beebe as the corps' director, a position he would hold for thirty years until his death in 1968. The advisory committee to guide the musical unit included none other than Lewis Kessler, the original corps director.
In its early days, the corps performed concerts and appeared in many local parades. During World War II, the corps participated in war bond rallies. The corps was split in 1951, with the older members becoming the Madison Explorer Scouts and the younger assigned to the Madison Junior Scouts, a cadet feeder corps for the older unit.
In 1954, the Explorer Scouts entered field competitions and, in their first national competition, finished second at the VFW Nationals in Philadelphia. They repeated as runners-up in 1955. In 1956, they attended the American Legion Nationals in Los Angeles and again placed second. They were then finalists at VFW Nationals from 1957 through 1962 and made American Legion Finals in 1958 and 1959. In 1969, Bill Howard became corps director.
In 1971, at the urging of Cavaliers founder Don Warren and Troopers founder Jim Jones, the Blue Stars, Cavaliers, Madison Scouts, Santa Clara Vanguard, and Troopers formed the Midwest Combine. This was in reaction to the rigid, inflexible rules of the American Legion and VFW (the primary rule makers and sponsors of both corps and shows), and the low or nonexistent performance fees paid for appearing in the various competitions. The corps felt that the existing competitive circuits stifled creativity and starved corps financially. (A similar group of Eastern corps, the United Organization of Junior Corps, also known as the Alliance, was formed by the 27th Lancers, Garfield Cadets, Boston Crusaders, Blessed Sacrament Golden Knights, and Blue Rock.) The Combine members believed that member corps should be able to make their own rules, operate their own competitions and championships, and keep the bulk of the monies earned. For the 1971 season, the corps stuck together, offering show promoters the five corps as a package. Despite pressure on show sponsors, judges, and other drum corps, the Combine corps booked into a number of shows together.
In 1972, all ten corps from the Midwest Combine and the Alliance—plus the Anaheim Kingsmen, Argonne Rebels, and De La Salle Oaklands—became founding members of Drum Corps International, which remains the sanctioning body for junior corps in North America. At the first DCI World Championships in Whitewater, Wisconsin, the Scouts finished in fourteenth in a competition that featured thirty-nine corps from the East, the South, the West Coast, the Midwest and Great Plains, and Canada. In 1973, the Scouts rose all the way up to fourth place. The following year they were DCI runners-up, and in Philadelphia in 1975, the Madison Scouts became the third corps to win the DCI World Championship.
In 1980, after sixteen previous appearances and ten prior Finals, the Madison Scouts tied for 1st place with The Cavaliers at VFW Nationals in Chicago. At this time the corps started working towards composing the entire staff with Scouts alumni, with Bill Howard stepping down and being replaced by Scott Stewart as corps director.
In June 1988, the Madison Scouts went to Europe as part of their fiftieth-anniversary celebration. They presented clinics and performed in exhibition at contests that included all of the corps from Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Germany. That year, they also won their second DCI World Championship.
In 1990, the organization dropped the name Scouts from the corporate name and allowed the charter for Boy Scout Troop 600 to lapse, although the corps remained affiliated with Scouting. In 1995, the Junior Scouts merged with the CapitolAires Drum and Bugle Corps, an all-girl corps from Madison. The resulting co-ed Capital Sound Drum and Bugle Corps would operate under the Madison Scouts organization. Southwind Drum and Bugle Corps was also brought into the organization in 1997, relocating from Montgomery, Alabama to Lexington, Kentucky.[8] Southwind departed the organization ten years later in 2007.
Since 2017, the organization has also sponsored Mad Brass, a marching band competing in the SoundSport division. In 2018, the organization added Fleurish Winds, a co-ed ensemble that competes in WGI Winds.[9] In 2024, the corps made an appearance in the DCI World Championships Finals, marking not only their first appearance in finals since 2017, but also the first time that women appeared in finals with the Madison Scouts as the corps became co-ed in 2019.