MacCormack, 66, joins the band
11/7/2005 11:14:19 AM
Daily Journal
By Cindy Howle
For the Daily Journal
OXFORD – He’s one of 46 trumpet players among the 274-member Ole Miss
Marching Band.
He’s also the only 66-year-old in this group – practicing a grueling eight
to 10 hours a week in unforgiving weather. So instead of relaxing on his back
porch overlooking the lake at Wellsgate, Alex MacCormack is warming up with
the other band members – some of whom are more than 40 years younger –
zipping through scales and lip exercises.
MacCormack, a retired electrical engineer from St. Louis, traveled to
several cities and countries sprinkled across the globe as a former designer of
test machines for Emerson.
“Wherever I went, I took my trumpet and found a band,” MacCormack said.
After he and his wife Linda retired and moved to Oxford in 2002, MacCormack
again found music, bringing his trumpet to the Community Band. There he met
Ole Miss Band director David Willson. He enjoyed Willson’s teaching style
filtered through unexpected humor.
MacCormack had a new musical ambition – becoming a member of the Ole Miss
Marching Band.
At the first rehearsal he was somewhat nervous.
“The word had gotten around,” he said. “(The students) knew who I was when
I went to the first table. They were a little surprised by my response when
asked about my experiences. I’ve been around so long, these jokes I tell, they’
ve never heard before.”
Trying on the uniform for the first time was a challenge.
“It took two women to help him find all the zippers,” chuckled wife, Linda.
He couldn’t reach the side zipper, and the buttons were a maze. “You need a
dress rehearsal to figure it out,” said Alex MacCormack.
The marching band sound was a thrill; reading tiny printed music while
maneuvering across the field is not. Thus, Alex MacCormack carries two small
magnifiers to read marching charts and enters all music into a computer program
that enlarges and color-codes notes: Red means stop; green is go. Generated
arrows over notes indicate movement.
“There’s a lot to remember. I spend a lot of time out of band with the
notes,” he said.
Nonetheless, MacCormack has kept pace with the physical demands of marching
and road trips.
“It’s no problem” he said. “I keep active with tennis. I’ve never quit.”
It’s been great, but with yard work calling, he’s undecided about marching
again.
“When it comes next fall, I may not even remember I was in a band,” Alex
MacCormack said with a laugh.
Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 11/7/2005
8:00:00 AM, section 0 , page 0 Tupelo, Mississippi