All-girls Monroe Drum and Bugle Corps returns for annual Christmas parade

Decades have passed since they marched in uniform down Broad Street in Monroe, but come Thursday, members of the former Monroe Girls Corps will don matching T-shirts and once again strut their stuff in this year's annual Christmas parade.

For years before it finally disbanded in 1983, the corps was a source of pride for the city and the state of Georgia, performing in the Macyʼs Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, at halftime shows and in other events in cities across the country.

And so in many ways, their return will be a walk down memory lane.

Some will play drums, but no bugle will sound. And the hundred or so who will march wonʼt likely move with the same agility or precision. They are grandmothers and great-grandmothers now, slowed some by age.

But decades after their last performance with the corps, they say the pride of having been a part of something special still lingers. They feel honored to return with their late director Wayne Shieldsʼ widow, Myrtle, as co-grand marshals of this cityʼs 60th annual holiday parade.

When the corps formed all those years ago, there weren’t that many opportunities for girls at Monroe High, said Nancy Sorrells, 78, of Stone Mountain. The corps changed that.

“We were really proud to be a part of it,” Sorrells said.

‘This sounded good’

According to her, the girls-only corps was founded in 1949 and was funded by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4421, along with the city and the local public school. “They paid for our instruments, they paid for our uniforms and music and travel expenses, “ Sorrells said recently.

Shields invited girls in grades six through 12 to try out for the corps. Forty-one, including a drum major, were selected. By the summer of 1949, the new corps performed at the American Legion State Convention. Later, Shields conferred with city officials, and the Monroe Girls Corps became the centerpiece of the first Monroe Christmas Parade in December 1953 and every year thereafter.

Sorrells, formerly Nancy Bradley, Emily Gunter Everett and Julie Wahl Arnold said becoming a member of the corps was the highlight of their young lives and made them feel “special” at a time when there wasn’t much to feel good about. Except for Arnold, a transplant from the North, they were mostly small-town girls who without the corps never wouldʼve traveled far from rural Walton County.

The corps took them to places unimaginable: New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia. They performed at festivals and parades, including inaugural events for two Georgia governors, and at Carnegie Hall. In 1959, the corps won first place in the Lions Club International Competition in New York City. On countless occasions, they were the featured attractions at Georgia college football games. Tapes of their performances were sent to American troops in Vietnam. Once they were awarded the Marine Corps Iwo Jima Award.

Sorrells was a charter member. She was 13 then, a country girl with not much to do.

“I wanted something to do and this sounded good,” Sorrells said. “I signed up.”

Sorrells played the bugle. So did Everett.

The 76-year-old grandmother said she liked the idea of an all-girls corps. Plus, it was an opportunity to learn to read music and become part of something many saw as a family affair, headed by the very strict and insightful disciplinarian, Shields.

“He was tough, and I was scared to death of him,” Everett said. “At the same time, he could see the good in you and bring it out.”

Arnold, 56, of Cummings, said her mother made her audition for the corps.

“She really wanted me to play the bugle, but Mr. Shields really wanted me to play drums, so I ended up playing drums,” she said.

The women said that despite his overbearing ways, Shields always managed to make them feel special and proud of who they were. And he insisted that they see themselves not just as a band, but a precision and exhibition group because there was a difference.

“We were good,” Sorrells said.

Only the skirts changed

That greatness, though, came at a price.

Shields demanded a lot, they said. When they didn’t meet his expectations, he issued them demerits.

Their sins? Tardiness. Unpolished shoes. A tarnished horn. Talking back. Chewing gum.

Ten transgressions and you were tossed out of the corps. No exceptions.

Five days a week for 51 weeks of the year, they were required to practice. They got one week off — July 4 — and that was chosen by Shields himself.

Myrtle Shields said the July 4 week made sense because Monroe pretty much shut down then.

“We lived our entire life schedule according to Wayne Shields,” she said.

No one seemed to mind, and so as each girl graduated there were always other girls waiting, hoping in the wings to take their places. The only thing that changed was the length of their skirts, which fell around midcalf during Sorrells and Everettʼs tenure; midthigh by the time Arnold was accepted.

The music never changed. Neither did Shields.

“He loved it,” Myrtle said.

By 1983, when the corps disbanded, thousands of girls including his daughter Marsleete had marched to Shields’ demanding beat. Many, including Sorrells and Everett and Arnold, graduated, married and raised children of their own. Like Shields, some members have died.

And so they said this weekʼs parade arrives with mixed feelings.

“Some of the people wonʼt be there,” Arnold said. “Mr. Shields wonʼt be there.”