Chapter 24 excerpt

In 1970 the Beatles broke up and four students were killed during a protest at Kent State. But in Franklin, 1970 was the year that Pix stepped aside as director of the band and Edwin W. Frye stepped up to become the group’s musical leader. Mike Judy had returned to Franklin as the high school’s new choir director; he was brought on board as the new assistant band director.             Ed Frye grew up in Irwin, Pennsylvania, not particularly surrounded by music, but in fifth grade he was taken to the spring concert of the high school band. There he chose an instrument, settling on the clarinet “because they got to play more than anybody else.” At his first lesson in sixth grade he figured out how the clarinet worked, and at home he played all sorts of familiar songs by ear.             In high school he moved to sax; then the band director moved him to the tuba section because he was a big guy. Ed discovered a talent for picking up an instrument quickly and that led him to think that he should be a music teacher.             He went on to Mount Union College where he majored in sax and minored in bassoon; he graduated in 1961. He went to work for General McLane school district for four years on the elementary level, then moved to Cambridge Springs High School, where he taught general music during the day and was expected to schedule band and choir rehearsals after school during activity period.             Pete Petrioni, a legendary music and instrument salesman in Western Pennsylvania, told Ed that Franklin was looking for a music teacher. Given the chance to become part of an actual program, he made the move to Franklin in 1967. Pix was not really interested in holding onto the Franklin Band directorship; it was typically selfless of him to take the band that he had built up over the last six years and hand it off to the new young director in town.             Fifty musicians stepped out for the 1970 Memorial Day parade. Fran Fry, Jr., whose father was a longstanding fixture of the percussion section, used his regular newspaper column to take the Twin City Imperials to task for their non-appearance. A lot of people have dropped from dimes to dollars into corps’ containers on recent tag days and I don’t think it would be asking too much for the unit to participate in parades in the Twin-Cities, Franklin and Oil City.             I realize the corps is always eyeing new honors in drum and bugle competitions all over the country, but they shouldn’t forget their hometown fans.               Fran went on to praise the Franklin Band.