JAGCAT
Active Member
http://www.2theadvocate.com/features/59862447.html?showAll=y&c=y
By CAROL ANNE BLITZER
Advocate staff writer
Sep 20, 2009
Forty years have passed since the Dancing Dolls first marched onto the field to perform with the Southern University Marching Band, but the eight original Dolls will never forget the excitement of that night.
“When we walked in, we were just the most precious things that anybody had ever seen,†said Mauretta Wailes Hurst, one of the original eight. “Everybody just oohed and aahed.â€
Isaac Greggs, who served as Southern’s band director for 36 years, selected the original eight. He knew them all from his previous position as band director at the Southern University Laboratory School.
A State-Times article June 16, 1969, when Greggs accepted the position at Southern, reported that what he wanted from the band was “a lot of pageantry, excitement and precision maneuvers.â€
He also wanted some pretty young women to add pizzazz to his all-male band. So he brought in Gracie Perkins, who was doing her practice teaching at the Lab School, to organize the Dancing Dolls.
By CAROL ANNE BLITZER
Advocate staff writer
Sep 20, 2009
Forty years have passed since the Dancing Dolls first marched onto the field to perform with the Southern University Marching Band, but the eight original Dolls will never forget the excitement of that night.
“When we walked in, we were just the most precious things that anybody had ever seen,†said Mauretta Wailes Hurst, one of the original eight. “Everybody just oohed and aahed.â€
Isaac Greggs, who served as Southern’s band director for 36 years, selected the original eight. He knew them all from his previous position as band director at the Southern University Laboratory School.
A State-Times article June 16, 1969, when Greggs accepted the position at Southern, reported that what he wanted from the band was “a lot of pageantry, excitement and precision maneuvers.â€
He also wanted some pretty young women to add pizzazz to his all-male band. So he brought in Gracie Perkins, who was doing her practice teaching at the Lab School, to organize the Dancing Dolls.
