Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps
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| Location | Fort Mill, SC |
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| Division | World Class |
| Founded | 1988 |
| Director | Jim Coates |
| Championship titles | 1993 (Div. II) 2013 (World Class) |
| Uniform | (2016) Black jacket Striped brown pants with brown and gold swirly strip down left leg Black shoes Topless black shako w/ brown and gold swirly stripe and neck wraparound, |
Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps is a World Class (formerly Division I) competitive junior drum and bugle corps. Based in Fort Mill, South Carolina, Carolina Crown is a member corps of Drum Corps International (DCI). On August 10, 2013, Carolina Crown won the 2013 DCI World Class Championship, also becoming the first former Open Class/Division II corps to do so.
The Carolina Crown organization was founded in 1988 as the Charlotte Drum Corps Association, a group of local drum corps fans who gathered on an irregular basis to talk about drum corps and watch drum corps video. After organizing themselves with Bill Loelius as president, Kevin Smith as vice president, and Luanne Bialecki as Secretary-Treasurer, the group hosted two drum corps shows, Southern Gold Classic at Davidson College and NightBEAT at Charlotte's Memorial Stadium. Southern Gold Classic drew a small audience and lost money. NightBEAT was much better attended, but the group was unable to pay the stadium rental. When NightBEAT Chairperson Doug Madar, Bill Loelius, and Kevin Smith met with Charlotte Parks & Recreation Department Superintendent Marvin Billups to discuss working out some sort of payment schedule, they were surprised when Billups not only wrote off the bill for the 1988 NightBEAT but offered the Department's sponsorship for future shows. In 1989, a gift of $1000 was offered by the Queen City Optimists with the proviso that the organization start a performance group; after discussions initially centered on starting a drum line, Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps was born.
After the corps bought a complete set of drums from a defunct drum and bugle corps only to discover that they were seriously damaged, John Cummings of Ludwig Drums offered to repair the drums as part of an informal sponsorship of the corps. The name Carolina Crown was adopted to recognize the groups' desire to represent the Carolinas region while still recognizing Charlotte, the Queen City, which has a crown in its logo. The leadership group met, in the fall of 1989, with a number of young band directors who were also alumni of Suncoast Sound, Spirit of Atlanta, and the Madison Scouts drum and bugle corps to tell them of their efforts to start a new local corps. From this group, Don Flewell, Cecil Adderley, Bill Register, and Van Mathews volunteered to be the corps' first instructors. After locating and purchasing the horns of the defunct California Dons, Carolina Crown began recruiting members. The corps also formed a partnership with the Mecklenburg Council of the Boy Scouts of America as Explorer Post #588, which aided them in finding school space for auditions and practices.
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