Colts Drum and Bugle Corps
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| Location | Dubuque, Iowa |
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| Division | World Class |
| Founded | 1963 |
| Director | Vicki MacFarlane |
| Uniform | (2015) Red Fading to Purple frontal design White shoulder pads White gauntlets Black pants and shoes, White on front and black on Back shako w/silver bill, Triangle mirror badge, & White on front and Black on back plume |
The Colts Drum and Bugle Corps is a World Class (formerly Division I) competitive junior drum and bugle corps. Based in Dubuque, Iowa, the Colts is a member corps of Drum Corps International (DCI).
The corps that is now the Colts began in 1963, when the Dubuque American Legion Post and its senior drum and bugle corps, the Dukes of Dubuque started the all-boy "Junior Dukes." With old, used instruments from the Dukes and a uniform of white shirt, black pants and shoes, and a black and white overseas cap with a red tassel, the first year corps entered parades with twenty-four buglers, ten drummers, and a four-member color guard. The instructional staff was Dick Davis, who taught horns, drums, and marching. The instructional staff doubled in size in 1964, as Clarence Hagge joined Davis in teaching horns and marching.
When the Dukes ceased operations in 1965, Davis, Hagge, and corps manager Bob Buelow assumed the leadership and changed the corps' name to the Legionnaires and took the corps from being strictly a parade corps into field competition. When the majority of the 1964 members did not return, however, the age limit was lowered to thirteen, allowing the corps to field forty-eight members, and after the season, recruitment problems were somewhat eased by the decision to add girls and make the corps coed. On November 16, 1966, the Parents and Boosters Club was formed. The following fall, the Legionnaires B Corps (which is now the Colt Cadets) was founded as a "feeder" for the "A" corps, with Sonia Hickson as director and members of the "A" corps as instructional assistants. With two corps, the organization also took the step of incorporating as a not-for-profit youth organization. In 1968, the Legionnaires had a budget of $13,000, and the "A" corps undertook its first major tour. The eighty-three member corps traveled more than 4,000 miles, won eight first-place trophies, and earned official recognition as "Dubuque's Junior Ambassadors of Goodwill".
The success of the 1968 corps fostered a desire to compete in more than American Legion sponsored shows and brought about a second name change for the corps. The renamed Colt .45 toured in new uniforms with a Western theme, "...because they were the cheapest" and adopted a Western theme for the music for their field show. The eighty-six member 1969 Colt .45 corps toured Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, competing in Class A at eighteen shows, winning most of them, including the Mid-American Drum Corps Circuit Championship and the Iowa VFW Junior State Championship. The corps' first "big" investment also took place in 1969, when the corps purchased its first equipment truck. In 1970, the corps became a drum corps ground-breaker when they performed the "Colt .45 Stomp" in their field show. The piece is believed to be the very first use of an arrangement written for a drum corps in a non-standard meter. "Colt .45 Stomp" was written in 7/4 time, and many judges gave them "ticks" (demerits) for marching out of step on the downbeat of every other measure. Nevertheless, the Colt .45 won the Iowa State American Legion title. In 1971, the Colt .45 spent approximately $6000 for all new horns and drums. With Harlow Haas replacing Bob Buelow as director, the corps toured Wisconsin and Kansas and attended the VFW Nationals Championship in Dallas, the corps' first "national" competition and its first time performing on artificial turf.
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