Bearkat Marching Band
| Bearkat Marching Band | |
|---|---|
| School | Sam Houston State University |
| Location | Huntsville, Texas |
| Conference | Southland |
| Founded | 1910 |
| Director | Brian Gibbs |
| Members | 250 |
The Bearkat Marching Band, also known as The Famous Bearkat Band or the BMB, is the marching band at Sam Houston State University. The band was founded in 1910 under the direction of C.W. Feuge, and is currently directed by Brian Gibbs. The band appears at Sam Houston football and basketball home games, as well as at pep rallies, the annual Battle of the Piney Woods in Houston, TX, and occasionally at in-state away games.
The Sam Houston State Bearkat Marching Band has a record dating back to 1910. This unofficial university band consisted of just seven members, who were all males from multiple backgrounds, which included students, faculty, and Huntsville residents. Band director C. W. Feuge, a German instructor at the university, was approached by Henry C. Pritchett, president of the university, to start a brass band.
After 7 years, the Sam Houston Band was officially organized in 1917. Before being made official, the band was open to anyone who had an instrument and was willing to participate, and more importantly, they were ineligible for any state funds. The new university president, Harry Estill, and Earl Huffor, the new band director and faculty manager, proved to the state legislature that states funds were needed to support the program. As a result, the marching band received six hundred dollars, which they used to purchase instruments and other supplies for the band. The first concert was performed in November 1917, and was considered successful enough to establish Huffor as the permanent band director until 1919. Following the spring semester of 1919 a new band director, W.R. Faifer, was appointed. Faifer had previously conducted a fifty-piece orchestra in Nacogdoches, Texas. Early meetings of the band were focused on music instruction until Faifer felt they were ready for public performance.
Over the next twenty years the band was directed under four different men: Faifer through the spring of 1920; W. R. Ford (1920-21); Erwin G. Ernst (1922-28); N. J. Whitehurst (1928-37); and C. R. Hackney (1937-40). The band's most successful years came in 1923-24. They performed at all home basketball games; all pep rallies, assemblies, and a memorial ceremony for Sam Houston at the Huntsville Community Fair on Armistice Day. In a program created by former Sam Houston alumni, the marching band performed in Fort Worth, Texas for a radio appearance. Following the performance, the band received complimentary letters from thirteen different states and Canada. The band made a return trip to Fort Worth the following semester to perform at the State Teachers Convention. At the basketball games, according to the campus newspaper, The Houstonian, they "made the gym vibrate and helped put fight into the team and spirit into the student body".
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