Timeline

The Morrill Act, through which the University of Nebraska was created, stipulated that land grant institutions must support "...at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts...". In 1876, to fulfill the Act’s requirement for military tactics to be taught, the fledgling University established the Military Science program.

In May 1882, campus was buzzing with excitement over the baseball game that would be played in Crete that month. The young band was also enthusiastic, and the university paper, The Hesperian Student, reported that "The Cadet Band set all a roaring by coming on the scene in sober black suits, white ties and gloves and the tallest of 'stove-pipe' hats." To fill its ranks, the cadet band even recruited a high school student from Plattsmouth, Frank Wheeler, to join the ensemble for the day. It was noted that Frank played baritone, "and excellently, too."

The Cadet Band joined with Crete's band to lead the excited students from the train station to the ball grounds, where, despite the students' best efforts to cheer on the team, Doane won 32 to 10.

"The University Cadet band will accompany the train and wake up old Missouri," proclaimed the May 27, 1904 Daily Nebraskan, describing an upcoming excursion to visit the St. Louis World's Fair. The Cadets had arranged early in 1904 to make their annual encampment at the fairgrounds, similar to their experience at the much closer 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha. The University sponsored a decorated train to take students to the exhibition.

November 1st, 1927, "The March King" John Philip Sousa and his band paid a visit to Lincoln, Nebraska for two much anticipated concerts on the newly updated Coliseum stage. His visit became a large event for the city of Lincoln. Over a dozen high school bands came to town for "band day" and paraded through the streets. The lucky bands took part in both concerts, "formed into one huge organization and directed by Sousa himself." The Daily Nebraskan reported that even the University of Kansas band planned to take part in the proceedings, playing Sousa marches during the concert intermissions. An estimated 5,000 people attended the two concerts to hear Sousa's band and the other participants in "band day."

The legacy of Sousa's visit still endures today. During his visit, Sousa presented the R.O.T.C. band with a silver "loving cup" trophy for the regiment's rating the previous year, a trophy which rests today in the School of Music's halls. Also, at the request of Chancellor Burnett, Sousa composed the "University of Nebraska March" the following year.

By the end of the 1920s the military garb of the marching band was beginning to detract from the band's performances. After a subset of the band traveled to West Point in 1928, a local paper compared their looks to "messenger boys," a comment that The Daily Nebraskan rebutted by saying the author "probably meant that the boys looked quite dashing for the messenger boys are quite a dashing lot." It was undeniable, however, that the marching band's appearance did not match their increasing role on campus as a purveyor of pep.

In 1935, The Daily Nebraskan published a scathing article comparing the "dull and colorless gray" Nebraska band with the "glittering" dress of the visiting University of Kansas band. "Brighter uniforms would help a lot," the article remarked. By early 1936, spurred by the Kansas visit, it was announced that the military department would be purchasing new scarlet and cream uniforms. "A properly dressed band is a better marching band," the military department's Colonel Oury was quoted as saying. The band's director, Billy Quick, agreed: "They play better now that they have good looking suits."

On a blustery, snowy day in 1938, the first official Band Day for high school bands took place in Lincoln, Nebraska. At its peak, Band Day would draw 3,600 students from 60 high schools across the state for a full day with a parade, football game, and massive on-field formations with dozens of other high school bands.

The concept of "Band Day" at UNL appears in print as early as 1926, when composer and conductor John Philip Sousa visited Lincoln and conducted high school bands. Within a decade, Band Day was an annual event with participants ranging from Nebraska and Iowa high school bands to municipal and company bands. An advertisement in 1933 claimed about the "music spectacle," that there would be a parade "through the downtown district, followed by a mass concert of hundreds of musicians in the stadium." When Donald Lentz became the director, he refined this existing event into a high school specific occasion. Lentz's rationale for this change was to improve band member recruitment and to build "...interest in the band across the state," he recalled in a 1973 Omaha World Herald article.

Early in its history, the massive scale of Band Day was one of its most appreciated qualities. Begun by John Selleck in the midst of the Great Depression, Band Day filled seats in a relatively new stadium desperately in need of an audience. A few years later during World War II, Band Day's size and popularity drew another needed audience despite higher expenses and rations. Don Lentz said in a 1974 interview that "the only thing that saved the Athletic Department was that Band Day." Lentz recalled that Band Day was so popular with the Athletic Department during WWII that Athletic Director Potsy Clark asked Lentz if every game could be Band Day.

The sheer size of Band Day was ultimately its downfall. By 1971, as rising demand for seats and enhancements to the stadium made it difficult to host so many students even once a year. In the decades following the war, the Athletic Department's support for Band Day began to decline and its activities restricted. In a fiery letter to Nebraska State Bandmaster's Association members in 1966, George Meredith predicted the end of the event: "We are witnessing, here in Nebraska, the death throes of the oldest and finest institution of its type in the nation - that being the University of Nebraska Band Day. Commencing this fall, the assembled bands will no longer be allowed to march on the field during half-time of the Band Day game...Make no mistake, Band Day has been pushed off the field - soon it will find itself out of the stadium as well." Within 5 years, Meredith's prediction had come true, as 1971 was the final Band Day at the University of Nebraska.

World War II brought with it many changes for the University of Nebraska as well as the band program. The 1944 yearbook explained that "...the armed forces drew heavily upon the personnel of the...band. This year for the first time in its history, coeds were permitted to march with the band…" Band director Prof. Lentz recalled that "during those war years we had to rely on the ladies all the way through." Women continued to be involved in marching band until 1946, when women were excluded from marching, but continued to play in concert band.

Besides during WWII women had not been welcome in the marching band, with the exception of a handful of twirlers, despite the involvement of "co-eds" in concert bands. By the 1970s, women were pressuring the band program to allow them to join, threatening to lodge a discrimination complaint with the Faculty Senate Women's Rights Committee. Director Snider resisted, claiming a variety of reasons why the ensemble should remain all-male, including uniform sizing, physical demands, and increased expenses. Toni Hillard, a member of the NU Women's Action Group, rejected those excuses in a Daily Nebraskan article: "Was he [Snider] watching at Band Day as both women and men from all over the state marched together?" By 1971, the band agreed to open its ranks to women, but it was not until 1972 that five women were successful in the audition process.

The first years were likely not easy for the handful of women in the majority male band. Pages of Jack Snider's scrapbooks from that time are filled with articles written about the women from their hometown newspapers. In a clipping, one of the first five women, Lilly Coniglio, remarked to a reporter from that such attention "...put us in the spotlight and resulted in a lot of extra pressure." Gary Steffens, author of Pride of the Cornhuskers, admits that within the band's environment the women faced challenges from their peers as well. "I think we picked on the girls worst of all," Steffens wrote of a "semi-underground" publication produced by band members. "While they were good musicians and marchers...we were very upset about it."

In the fall of 1975, the band was under the charge of Dr. Robert Fought, who had big plans for the ensemble. He added 39 personnel to the band's membership, half of whom were members of a brand new flag corps. Dubbed "the ladies in red," the new group carried red and white banners which band staff member Rose Johnson recalls were attached to 8 foot poles. Prior to the flag corps, the band had partnered for performances with The Huskerettes, a dance team who incorporated flags into their routines.

This expansion of the band was not altogether a smooth one; there was not room for them in the stadium. A Daily Nebraskan article in September explained that the Athletic Department provided 12 rows of seats for the band. Athletic Director Bob Devaney was quoted as saying "Right now the band needs seats and money...we don't have either." Fortunately, the Athletic Department ultimately gave permission for bleachers to be set up for the band's additional 40 members.

1975 was also the first year that the band had a female drum major, Diane Miller Frost, who served as drum major in 1975 and 1976.

The Cornhusker Marching Band traveled to Washington, D.C. to take part in the Kennedy Center Honors event celebrating Johnny Carson, longtime host of The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1949. After Carson's death in 2005, the marching band performed a 2007 halftime show in his honor.

In 1996, the University of Nebraska was awarded the Sudler Trophy, an honor bestowed through the John Philip Sousa Foundation. This award is for a band which has the "highest of musical standards and innovative marching routines and ideas, and which has made important contributions to the advancement of the performance standards of college marching bands over a number of years." The Sudler Trophy resides in the Glenn Korff School of Music.

A marching band's front ensemble, often called a "pit," is composed of musicians who do not march with their instruments. Pits may include marimbas and other mallet percussion, timpani, bass drums, tam tams, amplified (electric) instruments, and smaller percussion instruments like tambourines, cowbells, and splash cymbals.

The band was no stranger to glockenspiels and large drums, two lyres and the five foot drum "Big Bertha" having been added to the band in 1932, but the use of that instrumentation had fallen out of use by the end of the 20th century. In 1999, with the attention of the assistant director at the time, Anthony Falcone, a front ensemble was added to the Cornhusker Marching Band which reincorporated those instruments and many more to augment the band's musical versatility.

After years of away trips accompanied by multiple trucks to transport all of the band's equipment and instruments, the band purchased a trailer capable of carrying everything, including all of the uniforms. With a beautiful exterior, the trailer also serves as an advertisement. Doug Bush, Assistant Director of Bands, remarked "It really serves a dual purpose, we haul our equipment inside, but the outside is a 'billboard' for the UNL Band Program." In 2016, the trailer was updated with a new exterior.