BAND OF THE HOUR UNITES GENERATIONS

March of Time

here are less than ten seconds on the scoreboard. The opposing team attempts a field goal for a one-point win over the Hurricanes. As the kick sails just left of the goal post, the boom of bass drums and the blare of horns fill the stadium with the sweet sound of victory.

Throughout the years, the Band of the Hour has created a whirlwind of spirit and sound that unites Hurricane fans in victory as well as defeat. The marching band is one of the earliest organizations formed at the University and one that Charles R. Reinert, A.B. ’37, remembers well. He is one of the original members, recruited from Detroit by the band’s first director, Walter E. Sheaffer, who had served as concertmaster with the United States Marine Band under John Philip Sousa. By 1937 the band numbered 74 and included the late Florida Congressman Dante Fascell in the clarinet section. These were the lean Great Depression years, but Reinert recalls the richness of his experiences—late-night pajama parades, a student-run fundraising campaign to paint the Anastasia Hotel where the band was housed, and the time the band mistakenly spelled “O HELL” on the field.

“Arthur Pryor, one of America’s finest band conductors,” Reinert recalls, “said it best when he was a guest conductor at the University: ‘There is a place reserved in heaven for Walter Sheaffer for building this band. It is the finest band I have ever directed.’”

Over the years, others have helped shape and even name the band. Henry Fillmore, a famed composer of band music, is responsible for the construction of its permanent home—the Henry Fillmore Band Hall. And as they played Fillmore’s march, “The Man of the Hour,” at the Orange Bowl in 1948, the announcer unwittingly coined the band’s official name with his impromptu quip: “The ‘Man of the Hour’ played by the Band of the Hour.”

Tradition is what grounds the band in the changing landscape at the University. Rousing fight songs, like “Hail to the Spirit of Miami University” and “Blow Canes,” provide a common language that spans generations. This year ’Cane Records released a compilation of the band’s classic fight songs on CD, The Eye of the Hurricane. Another time-honored responsibility is the band’s Famous First Rehearsal, the annual Coral Gables performance that rings in the new academic year.

Today the band reflects the diversity found on campus. Of its 187 members, only 23 percent are music majors. Most played in their high school bands, and many, including Band of the Hour director Michael Dressman, B.M. ’80, M.M. ’86, Ph.D. ’90, become high school or college band directors.

“Without a doubt, this is the most spirited group on campus. Their enthusiasm is a driving force, like the eye of the hurricane,” Dressman says.

Prior to their $33 million naming gift to the music school, UM Board of Trustees Chairman Phillip Frost, M.D., and his wife Patricia established a $1 million endowment in 2000 for the Band of the Hour. William Hipp, dean of the Frost School of Music, acknowledges that the gift ensures the band’s future. “The Frosts understood the power of music to create unity and lift hearts, and they made sure the music never stopped.”

— Annette Herrera

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Growing Two at a Time

t 15 percent, alumni giving is less at the University of Miami than at comparable private academic institutions, which average 20 percent or more. Being a relatively young institution, it takes time to “develop a culture of giving,” says Victoria Champion, executive director of the Annual Fund, which is a major source of support for student scholarships, academic initiatives, library acquisitions, and other pressing University needs. Alumni participation has been climbing swiftly over the past few years, but with the launch of its “2 for the U” program, the Alumni Association hopes it will surge to 20 percent by the end of the University’s Momentum fundraising campaign in 2007.

2 for the U is the brainchild of Ronald Stone, B.B.A. ’73, a UM trustee and an advocate for the Annual Fund. Stone’s plan is not unlike the process by which he built his business, The Comprehensive Companies, into an insurance industry powerhouse. He started by asking friends and family to introduce him to people he knew, establishing an exponentially growing network of referrals. The goal of 2 for the U is to cultivate 8,000 new alumni donors over the next three years. Stone intends to find the first 125 within six months, asking each of them to find two additional new donors within another six months, and so on. If the plan is successful, the number of new alumni donors will double every six months.

“As a private research University, our future in terms of being able to achieve greatness is highly dependent on loyalty and commitment to the institution from its alumni,” says Stone, who also is an Alumni Association past president.

“When I arrived here as a freshman in 1968, I knew no one,” Stone says. “By the time I graduated, I had determined to make my career and life here. Although I could never balance the scales in terms of what UM has given me, I decided I was going to spend the rest of my life trying.”

For more information on the 2 for the U campaign and how you can help increase alumni participation, contact the Annual Fund at 305-284-2872.

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Mousehold Convenience

oxes need packing. Furniture needs disassembling. And the neighbors keep popping in to say goodbye. Who has time to forward the mail, notify the electric company, or order telephone, cable, or Internet service?

If you’re a UM alumnus or employee, you can set up all the services you need in your new home through the UM Connection Center, a link on the Alumni Relations Web site (www.miami.edu/alumni). The link gives you access to the Resident Connection Service Network, a one-stop shop for essential household services developed by the Houston-based company Qcorps. The network, which is free for you to use, is offered by Alumni Relations as a value-added convenience and represents more than 400 service providers nationwide.

When you log on to the UM Connection Center and provide your new residential address, you receive information on all of the available services in that area. Click on a category, such as “Newspaper Delivery” or “Security and Alarms,” and you can compare packages and prices for each of the companies listed in those categories. The prices shown on the network are guaranteed by contract to be the lowest available. An account summary allows you to keep track of all the orders you placed through the site.

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Seeking Objets D’Artifact

hen Jopie (Theed) Estaver, A.B. ’53, was a freshman at the University of Miami, she had to wear her “dink” wherever she went, saluting and curtseying when an upperclassman would cross her path. By the time she was a senior, she had made her mark on campus as a member of the Chi Omega sorority, secretary of the Nu Kappa Tau women’s honor society, and one of five homecoming princesses who rode the royal float with the queen. Along the way, she picked up a few keepsakes of her time at the University: the dink, an owl figurine she received from her Chi Omega sisters, and a derby hat from the annual Sigma Chi Derby Day.

Such items are the vestigial time stamps that speak volumes about Hurricane customs and traditions, some thriving in perpetuity and others merely mile markers in an evolution of University identity. Every graduating class since 1927 has contributed to the bevy of dinks, M Club sweaters, Iron Arrow jackets, U.M. Hostess sashes, Hairy Cane football bugs, and other memorabilia unique to the University of Miami.

The University of Miami Alumni Association is on the hunt for these lost treasures, which it will use to build a comprehensive gallery of University history in the forthcoming alumni center. Similar to the Kerns Sports Hall of Fame on the Coral Gables campus, which displays athletic artifacts such as Rick Barry’s basketball shoes and a 1920s football rulebook, the alumni center archives will preserve and present the physical record of the University.

“Right now there is no central place at the University for the items produced and collected throughout our history,” says Donna Arbide, assistant vice president for Alumni Relations. “These are the objects that represent the cultural identity and progress of our institution.”

Contact the Alumni Association at 305-284-2872 if you would like to contribute your UM memorabilia to the alumni center gallery.

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