We would like to thank everyone who attended Sunday, August 21, 2011, the Louisiana Drum

Corps Reunion Picnic with special acknowledgement of the 30th Anniversary of the1981

DCI “Class A” Champions Louisiana Southernaires. This was a great event and we enjoyed

visiting with past drum corps friends and family.  The shelter at Laketown in Kenner was the

perfect spot for the occasion.

The Greater New Orleans Drum Corps Association (GNODCA) sponsored the event. A great

cake and wonderful banner with years of Drum Corp. pictures was made and donated to

GNODCA by one of its board members, Cheryl Gautreaux.  Many were in "awe" of the memory

lane that it took them down as they were laughing at those pictures from way back.  There

was 50/50 drawing, many parade of prize drawings and a cake mimicking the DCI Class A

Champion Banner.  All "parade of prize" gifts were donated by Nita Addotto, Cheryl Gautreaux,

and Babette Staunton.  The name tags, cups, plates and utensils were donated by a few of

our own good men:  Elroy Ingersoll, David Callaway and Mark Manguno.  We would like to thank

David McCoy for the use of his TV and DVD player to play the drum corps performances and

David Callaway for the use of his scanner for copying pictures and Alex Staunton for manning

the scanner; and as always when you put on an event there are those who tirelessly go fetch

all of the required equipment in order to help make the event a success, so we’d like to thank

David McCoy, David Callaway and Alex, Babette & Don Staunton. There was plenty of area for

Drum and Bugle Corps enthusiasts to shoot the breeze about past and current events. Most

came with drum corps memorabilia and shared stories for hours.

We would like to thank the following companies for donating items for this event: St Mary

Magdalene Parish Church, Winn Dixie, The Creative Corner, and Temple Inland. For additional

information, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or GNODCA on Facebook.

La. Southernaires Attendees - Top Row: Maurice Rieffel, Michael Minn,

Robert Waguspack, Kenny Latour, Jon deSilva; Middle Row: Cheryl Olivier

Gautreaux, Debbie Olivier Dalme’, Roxanne Pertuit Gray, Clay Ledbetter,

Bill Schneider, Sandra Dempsey; Bottom Row: Anthony Mendoza, Joseph

Mendoza, David McCoy, Michael Mendoza, David Callaway.