On the road with Pioneer Drum Corps

Broke-down buses, Ibuprofen, and a sex offender: On the road with Pioneer Drum Corps

Four months after the director of Allentown’s famed Cadets drum corps, George Hopkins, resigned amid a sexual misconduct scandal, the spotlight has now turned on another, smaller corps — Pioneer of Milwaukee.

Shoddy tour buses without air-conditioning in sweltering summer heat. Teenagers forced to provide medical care in lieu of professionals on staff. A known registered sex offender coaching the young performers.

This is Pioneer, a Milwaukee-based drum and bugle corps that crosses the country each summer performing theatrical marching band numbers to devoted fans. The group, whose members face taxing, all-day practices to perfect their shows, is one of two dozen competing in the most advanced tier of the all-American niche activity.

And now — in a year that has brought unprecedented scrutiny of drum corps — it’s the latest to face questions about its leadership, and to inspire renewed criticism of the activity’s governing body.

That organization, Drum Corps International (DCI), on Tuesday announced it had suspended Pioneer late last week. But it waited until the end of the season, despite ongoing complaints, to take the action. And it announced the move after the Inquirer and Daily News posed questions about the corps to DCI on Monday as part of an investigation into the activity, which started with airing sexual misconduct allegations against the now-former director of a famed Allentown drum corps.

DCI executive director Dan Acheson, in a statement, said the organization had been investigating Pioneer for several months and provided support through the summer with the goal of letting the corps finish the season.

Critics say that level of oversight had been warranted for years.

Pioneer’s problems are nothing new. Interviews with nearly two dozen people who have marched with or taught at Pioneer within the last decade identified numerous shortcomings that have plagued the corps for years.

“It’s the most well-known secret in DCI. It’s why so many of our members leave,” said Brett Luce, who marched with Pioneer in 2009 and taught there in 2015. “They march for a year, and then they go to other corps, where they’re safe and have high-quality experiences. And they tell the story; they tell their new friends. Everybody knows about Pioneer.”

Ahead of the 2018 summer tour, officials at the Indianapolis-based DCI attempted a course correction.

The organization had long operated as an event-management company, planning a two-month, coast-to-coast summer tour while providing administrative and logistical support to the separate corps. Acheson, in an April interview, acknowledged that DCI had made “the assumption these nonprofit organizations, in their own right, are doing what they’re supposed to be doing to manage themselves accordingly.”

DCI executive director Dan Acheson, in a statement, said the organization had been investigating Pioneer for several months and provided support through the summer with the goal of letting the corps finish the season.

Critics say that level of oversight had been warranted for years.

Pioneer’s problems are nothing new. Interviews with nearly two dozen people who have marched with or taught at Pioneer within the last decade identified numerous shortcomings that have plagued the corps for years.

“It’s the most well-known secret in DCI. It’s why so many of our members leave,” said Brett Luce, who marched with Pioneer in 2009 and taught there in 2015. “They march for a year, and then they go to other corps, where they’re safe and have high-quality experiences. And they tell the story; they tell their new friends. Everybody knows about Pioneer.”

Ahead of the 2018 summer tour, officials at the Indianapolis-based DCI attempted a course correction.

The organization had long operated as an event-management company, planning a two-month, coast-to-coast summer tour while providing administrative and logistical support to the separate corps. Acheson, in an April interview, acknowledged that DCI had made “the assumption these nonprofit organizations, in their own right, are doing what they’re supposed to be doing to manage themselves accordingly.”

Tricia L. Nadolny