BY RAY SCHAEFER
Enquirer Contributor
DELHI TOWNSHIP -- He recruited flutists the way basketball coaches go after power forwards.
A budget was hammered out. Uniforms ordered. Instruments bought. The result of more than a year's work strikes its first note this weekend at the College of Mount St. Joseph's football game.
The school's first marching band debuts when Mount St. Joseph hosts Otterbein at 1 p.m. Saturday at Elder High School.
"I'm excited about it," said Bruce Knapp, the college's director of bands. "It took a year to buy the instruments and the uniforms and generate the budget."
The marching band is part of a new program at the Delhi Pike school of about 2,500 students. Mr. Knapp, a longtime band teacher at Taylor High School in North Bend, said there will be 40 players, a six-member flag line and two drum majors.
But the marching band is just the beginning. Mr. Knapp, 56, said there will also be a pep band during basketball season, a concert band and a jazz ensemble.
Craig Hoerst, a freshman drum major and saxophone player from Hamilton County's Miami Township, said being in the band was the major factor in his choosing Mount St. Joseph over the University of Cincinnati.
"It's pretty neat being the first drum major," Mr. Hoerst said. "It's a little bit of pressure."
Mr. Knapp, who retired from Taylor in 1995, heard rumors in 1996 that Mount St. Joseph was starting a band program. Mike Murray, the school's director of annual giving, mentioned it, and in July 1997, Mr. Knapp was hired.
"I had rebuilt a couple programs, but this is the first time I started a band from scratch," Mr. Knapp said. "It sounded like a very interesting job. When I retired from Taylor and volunteered at Oak Hills, I realized I still liked directing a marching band."
The band practices 90 minutes a day Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus an hour before Saturday games. Mr. Knapp said working with college band members is a lot different from working with high schoolers.
"I'm finding collegiate students are much easier to work with than high school," Mr. Knapp said. "Just about every one of our students are from successful band programs. If the kids are serious enough to stick with the college band, with all the other things they have to do, then they're pretty darned good musicians and they're serious. They're motivated, that's the difference."
Mr. Knapp doesn't think he'll have much trouble recruiting band members.
"I think the band will sell itself," he said. "I think once the students see us . . . that's going to draw students in."
