A History of the
New York State Field Band Conference

Sherburne-Earlville Marching Marauders
West Genesee in 1976

The New York State Field Band Conference was formed on February 6, 1972 in Sherburne, New York when interested directors were asked to remain after a meeting of the the Sherburne Pageant of Bands. The purpose of forming the conference was to standardize rules for marching bands as well as provide useful, constructive feedback for bands from a panel of judges. Up until that time there a few field band contests for New York State bands in the fall as well as at spring band pageants. However, it was not unusual for bands to find that certain rules or time requirements varied from contest to contest. Often bands would spend precious practice time readjusting their shows for specific rules of upcoming contests. Forming the New York State Field Band Conference would eliminate many of those difficulties. Six bands became charter members of the New York State Field Band Conference. They were; Sherburne-Earlville (Frank Miller-director), Norwich (William Spang-director), West Genesee (Bruce Burritt-director), Cicero (Bob Codner-director), Vestal (Michael Williamson-director) and North Syracuse (Burt Dunlap-director). The goals of the conference meetings in 1972 were to attract additional members, schedule contests for the fall, attract top judges and standardize a set of rules to be used within the conference. Many of the rules drafted in those meetings came from the contest which was held the previous fall at Sherburne-Earlville on October 6, 1971. Called the "Sherburne-Earlville gold Rush" the show became the prototype for the New York State Field Band Conference. Here are the results of the 1971 Gold Rush;

October 6, 1971 Sherburne-Earlville Gold Rush
1st Cicero 77.60
2nd Vestal 60.40
3rd North Syracuse 47.60

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