A Selective Historical Overview of the Fleming Era WGH Panther Band

by Jim Brodell WGH '70 and Joyce Ormsby Meyer WGH '69  

    The year was 1958.

    Warren, Ohio remained a bustling hub of economic activity: steel mills, Packard Electric, auto parts manufacturing, and many other local industries.  Social activity largely revolved around the many civic organizations, their events, and the city’s Warren G. Harding High School.  Sporting nationally known names such as eventual professional Hall of Fame wide receiver Paul Warfield, its football and basketball teams drew large crowds. As youngsters, we knew the names of the high school’s star players. On the other hand, according to John Vlad, MD, a band member who graduated WGH ‘52, the music program throughout the 1950’s remained “small and average.”

    A young man, born in Kentucky, visualized an excellent opportunity to construct elite marching and concert bands at Warren G. Harding High School. Tall, knowledgeable, self-confident, and charismatic with a military bearing -- a no-nonsense disciplinarian with superb leadership and communication skills -- his name was Robert E. Fleming, A.B., M.A., Marshall University.

    Years later, Mr. Fleming would credit his own high school band director, John Lewis, a “pretty intimidating guy ... a tyrant, but a good man,” for inspiring him to enter the music profession.  Displaying talent on trumpet at an early age, Fleming was recruited in 7th grade to join Ashland Kentucky’s high school band. Performances under Band Director Lewis were remembered as “intense, disciplined things.”  One day, young Fleming walked through a light drizzle for a show at a basketball game.  He got sent home when Director Lewis observed rain spots on his uniform.  Clearly, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

    After high school, Fleming knew that embarking on a path toward becoming a musician and band director would not be easy:  no one in his family had ever attended college. Of his humble beginnings, he once quipped, "If I was true to my upbringing, I’d be walking around wearing overalls with a jug of whisky on my shoulder.”

    However, he entered Marshall University in West Virginia, and enjoyed his experience so much that he hoped someday to teach music in a university setting.  After stints in the U.S. Army and Kentucky National Guard, he focused firmly on his goal and, as part of resume-building toward achieving it, he took a job as band director for Ironton, Ohio city schools, across the Ohio River from his hometown in Kentucky.  From there, he arrived in Warren in 1958 to take over from long-time Marching Band Director Charles Corlett and join respected Director of Instrumental Music Dr. Carl Scheig. 

     Mr. Fleming's presence at the high school had an immediate effect, according to the 1959 Echoes yearbook: "Sparked by newcomer Robert Fleming, the Panther Band roused community and school spirit at athletic contests, entertained flood victims, and marched in several city-wide parades."   Although the band had only 48 musicians and six majorettes, Fleming set to work making changes starting with the appearance of the marching band. He planned eye-catching half-time shows with marching patterns, expanded the majorette line to nine and showcased them in dance routines with props. He chose spirited music for the football crowd and established a culture of fine musicianship within the instrumentalists. With the sponsorship of an active Band Boosters Club, he took his students on field trips to Columbus, Ohio to observe the renowned all-brass Ohio State University Marching Band with its prancing drum major and original marching patterns. He acquired the OSU fight song sheet music adapted to include woodwinds, "Across the Field," for his musicians to learn.  He planned trips for his band to hear the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, and the local Packard Concert Band of which he became a member on trumpet in 1959. The WGH Band spent 12 to 15 hours a week in rehearsal during football season, and "produced impressive half-time shows," according to the yearbook. The band quickly became popular among students, and soon an increased number auditioned, hoping to join the following year.

   Two years later for the 1960-’61 school year, Mr. Fleming for the first time was provided with an assistant director.  A fellow southerner arrived, Clinton Foster, M.A. Marshall University, a high school band director from West Virginia with five years of experience, to take over from the retiring Dr. Scheig who had taught orchestra at WGH since the school first opened in 1925. The new assistant possessed a similar skill set as Fleming but was found to be “softer around the edges,” an appropriate student confidant, yet also an enforcer when it came to marching precision and elegant musicality. 

   Together they ushered in a new era for the band, and in collaboration with Mr. Fleming whose focus was innovation, Mr. Foster is praised for implementing the marching band’s college-style floating diamonds and geometric kaleidoscope marching patterns.

   By 1962, the WGH band, numbering 128 with a new drum major and ten majorettes – students hailing from all walks of life – began hitting its stride, leading to national attention and tremendous civic pride. For the next four school years, enjoying the presence of extraordinary musical talent such as the once-in-a-generation gifted clarinetist Jim Ognibene WGH '65, the Fleming-Foster marching and concert bands were widely lauded as among the finest in the country.                          

   Packing in 8-12 thousand people per game, Warren had one of the largest newly-built high school football stadiums in the state of Ohio. Yes, the entire community still came to watch football, but people were just as interested in the band.  Nobody left their seat at half-time to get a hot dog! 

   Showmanship was Mr. Fleming’s forte, and a grand entrance was key:  Stunning the crowd, an imposing percussion line struck a sudden drum roll to herald the appearance of a drum major bounding onto the center of the field, and with a flourish tossed his gleaming baton high into the night sky.  All eyes watched in anticipation as it quickly descended to his swift grasp amid triumphant cheers as the band launched into its exciting run-on to the field, then snapped forward to quick-cadenced precision marching patterns, with majorettes in bright red, twirling sparkling batons to gorgeous musical renditions of popular songs, creating a spectacle of undeniable entertainment value.

    People couldn’t get enough.  After construction of the new Mollenkopf Stadium, additional funds were raised by 1962 to construct a unique bandshell, topped by a distinctive large glowing “W,” to protect the musicians and majorettes, and Band Night was created as a prelude to football season. The superior-rated concert bands performed at an elite college level, or very close to it.  Ensembles such as Dance Band and Jazz Band gave students a chance to expand their musicianship. 

    The 149-member WGH marching band was winning such wide attention that in August 1964, it was offered an invitation to perform during halftime at the nationally-televised College All-Stars vs Chicago Bears game at Chicago’s Soldier Field, an unheard-of opportunity for a high school band. Millions of football fans who had been tuned into the game stayed to watch the band's full performance, and soon letters of congratulations from across the country poured into the high school's office. The Chicago Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Warren Tribune Chronicle praised the 1964-65 band in news articles and photos, and the city newspaper published letters to the editor from citizens of Warren expressing pride and offering support and congratulations to the students and their band directors, Robert Fleming and Clinton Foster.  

   In the halls of Harding High School, students applauded the returning band members as heroes, as much as the football team, and pride for their school and among the wider community was at an all-time high. 

      By the 1965-66 school year, the WGH marching and concert bands faced a “rebuilding year.” Lost were 56 seniors, many of them “key members” through graduation, “...and that’s a band in itself,” said Mr. Fleming in an August 31,1965 Tribune Chronicle news article. “But with more practice and more experience, we’ll have a good group this year and surprise many people.” 

     Mr. Fleming and Mr. Foster got right to work to overcome this obstacle and assure that the smaller 110-member WGH marching and concert bands maintained the stellar reputation for precision and musical quality.  By this time Mr. Fleming knew that Mr. Foster would be leaving the following year to direct the band at a new high school being built in Warren, and he also knew that if he were to accept one of the offers for a college band directorship, it would not look good to leave behind a band during its rebuilding year. That plan would have to wait.  Working diligently together with the musicians, the WGH 1965-66 concert band's efforts were rewarded with another Superior “One” rating at state concert competition.  

   Then, in 1966, the burgeoning student population of nearly 900 students per graduating class at the only public high school in Warren required that it be split into two high schools – East: Warren G. Harding, and West:  Warren Western Reserve.  Each high school would now teach four class years instead of three.  Lost to Mr. Fleming was his right-hand man, Mr. Foster – who left to direct the new cross-town rival Warren Western Reserve band – and presumably, a cadre of talented west side students.  In came totally green freshmen and sophomores, meaning that three-fourths of the Harding band, probably with an overall four-year combined average age of 15, had no more than one year of experience.  It was a recipe for decline, yet a second rebuilding year, yet another obstacle to overcome -– that is, unless you had a director like Mr. Fleming, who would not accept any retreat from his tradition of excellence. 

   That 1966-67 Harding marching band, still with an important battle-tested contingent of talented veteran juniors and seniors, did live up to the legacy of its predecessors. Joined by the highly regarded and knowledgeable Assistant Band Director John Kobasiar Jr., B.M.Ed. Youngstown University, Mr. Fleming found a good counterpart, a director possessing similar “softer” Foster-style attributes, yet with a firm focus on uncompromising excellence.  A WGH '51 band alumnus, Mr. Kobasiar had performed under Charles Corlett on saxophone, and remarked that years later in 1958, upon observing the band under newcomer Robert Fleming, he and his wife were astounded at the "immediate and dramatic improvement" in the 1958 band's marching precision and musical quality.  "Our jaws dropped," he said, at how Fleming had transformed the once "average" band's halftime show into an exciting spectacle in appearance and sound in such a short time.

    In spring of 1967, immediately prior to the Ohio state-level concert competition, Mr. Fleming stood in front of his band still consisting of a sizable number of young, apprehensive, inexperienced musicians, and he said, “I don’t care if we get a 1 (“one” – the highest ranking) this year.  All I care about is that each of you play your best and, as a group, play to the level I know you are capable of. If you do that, I will be extremely proud of you, and everything will turn out fine."                             

    Those who were there that day were relieved and thrilled to have successfully attained and continued Harding’s unbroken string of seven-straight Level One concert competition performances, a remarkable achievement for such a young band.  

    Mr. Fleming's creative showmanship shined that year as he recognized the abilities of his students, in particular the singular talent of freshman majorette Colleen Tomlin, a state-wide baton twirling champion, who had won trophies in regional and state competitions. He featured Colleen on the field during band half-time performances in her glittering competition attire, where she entertained the stadium crowd with breathtaking twirling shows to exuberant applause. Colleen, the first WGH majorette to be selected as an eighth-grade student to appear with the band for her freshman year, marched with the WGH majorettes and performed baton specialty shows during halftime all four years, eventually becoming Head Majorette for the 1969-70 school year.  Colleen is one of three sisters who all served as WGH majorettes.     Mr. Fleming also lauded the uncommon skills of senior clarinetist Charles Hefling. "Chuck" transcribed Mozart’s “First Movement from Concerto for Clarinet K. 622,” a solo he near-flawlessly performed during the 1967 Mid-Winter Concert, as well as Strauss’ “Concerto for Horn,” a May 1967 Spring Concert French horn solo played by senior Leslie Shafer.  Mr. Fleming said his talented manuscript arranger-clarinetist was “[setting] the standard for other Warren music students in the years to come.”  Also, Chuck drafted the formulation of an original kaleidoscopic field drill performed to the “American Legion March” which the band performed at half-time.  A stunning accomplishment for a high school student, Mr. Fleming described Chuck’s strategic marching creation as “a precision drill featuring diamonds, X-patterns, converging lines, and singular designs.”   

   The following year 1967-68, Mr. Fleming believed his band was ready, and accepted a second invitation for his 139-member-strong marching band to perform at the College All-Star game in Chicago: their nationally televised full performance on Soldier Field was hailed as flat-out superb. 

    With assistant director Mr. Kobasiar, the same level of outstanding achievement was sustained throughout the fall season with spectacular marching half-time shows and yet another Level One, the eighth straight, earned at state concert band competition.

   A continuous, elite level of performance was only possible because of Mr. Fleming, the cornerstone, the necessary element, and the essential reason for the success of the 1967-1968 band, and all the bands that had come before.

   With the support and input of two exceptionally skilled assistant directors who carried out the vision of superior high school marching and concert bands, Mr. Fleming established the Warren G. Harding music program as THE standard by which high school bands state- and nation-wide measured themselves and to which they aspired.

    After returning from a triumphant August 1967 Chicago half-time performance, Mr. Fleming – always a consummate professional working in a collaborative spirit and a selfless educator of all young musicians – invited Mr. Foster and his fledgling Warren Western Reserve band to join WGH in a first-ever combined half-time show for the Cleveland Browns home opener September 7, 1967. 

    In order to accept any offer to join a college faculty, Mr. Fleming was determined to leave his high school career on a “high note,” and ensure that his band was a resounding success.  He achieved exactly that.

    Prior to the end of the 1968 school year, Mr. Fleming was finally given the opportunity to fulfill his original, long-held hope of directing college concert and marching bands.  After proving he could achieve at a high school the same type of bands that many colleges with experienced student marchers and musicians could produce, he attracted wide attention and was offered a university position which he readily accepted.  

   "The man who in the past decade has built the Warren G. Harding High School band into a musical powerhouse praised throughout the land for its performance and perfection is leaving [for YSU]," declared a news article in the Warren Tribune Chronicle.  "Under the aegis of Fleming...the Harding band has reached the pinnacle of local, state, and national acclaim," the article continued. "Highpoints in nationwide TV appearances have been those in 1964 and 1967 at the College All-Star games in Chicago," and stated that at the conclusion of the 1967-68 school year, from 1961-62 through 1967-68, the WGH bands had appeared eight times at Cleveland Browns home games, and made 14 national television appearances.   

    Thus, in fall 1968, after a phenomenal ten years with WGH, Mr. Fleming left the realm of high schools for Youngstown State University to join its faculty at the Dana School of Music, teaching and conducting their bands as director, and later Hiram College as Professor of Music and Director of Bands, in a college career that spanned the next 25 years.

    In 2010, in a permanent tribute to his lasting contributions to music education in Warren, the Harding band’s famous architectural structure at Mollenkopf Stadium was formally dedicated and inscribed as the Robert E. Fleming Band Shell.

    For WGH, as an additional legacy, Mr. Fleming left behind several star pupils, “disciples” if you will:  Rick Bartunek, Rich Rollo, Tom Hodgson, and Lynn Green Marlin, who successfully carried on his tradition of excellent bands as directors in Warren throughout the following decades.

   In addition to his teaching career, it is amazing to think about Mr. Fleming’s personal commitment as an active performer. During his entire time with WGH, he was also playing trumpet regularly with the Top Notes dance orchestra which he joined in the mid-1960s. Even before that, he had been hired almost as soon as he arrived in Warren in 1959 to join the Packard Concert Band at Packard Music Hall in Warren, and continued on trumpet at every single monthly Sunday afternoon concert for 45 years, longer than any other musical performance association in his entire career. During his time with the PCB, Mr. Fleming performed in the Kenley Players Orchestra, and directed The Big Band Sound of Packard, the Packard Jazz Quintet, and the Packard Dixieland Band, being named co-conductor of the Packard Concert Band in 1983. When he retired from the band in 2004, the Packard Board of Trustees honored him with the titles of Conductor Laureate and Conductor Emeritus.  

    As a fitting denouement to his remarkable story, Mr. Fleming was honored with the titles Distinguished Professor of Music and Director of Bands Emeritus from both Youngstown State University and Hiram College in 1993 – his youthful "someday" hope come true. 

   These examples of devotion to his profession, musical performance, and determination remain an inspiration, and truly exemplifies the type of commitment, love and leadership that we as his students have attempted to emulate over many years, regardless of our interests or career path in life. 

   The goal of The Warren G. Harding Band Historical Association: The Fleming Legacy, Mr. Fleming’s now combined 1950’s-1960’s WGH bands, is not a Level One ranking.  In his memory, we now come together to work to do our absolute best – to find and restore filmed marching performances, recorded concert music and memorabilia, to exhibit the work historically, to enjoy one last reunion, and permanently preserve our hard-won artistic accomplishments for posterity.

   Together, we achieved a level well beyond what many thought could be possible for young teenagers.  Now, considerably older, and with a wealth of experience across a spectrum of endeavors, we unite once again with the purpose of remembering and honoring our esteemed director and teacher, Mr. Fleming, who so indelibly influenced our lives.