GMS History The History of Greenbrier Military School | Page 30

concert bands and jazz bands. The band played on the radio (1400 on your
AM dial, WRON) and marched in parades. Captain Beardsworth was the
bandmaster in the 1930s and ‘40s, and the band—by all accounts—was great.
In 1930 they marched in the Grand Parade at the seventh annual Shenandoah
Valley Apple Blossom Festival, Winchester, Virginia. For the third time in
four years, the GMS Band (Brier Patch 1930) won first place, “competing
against the best military school bands of Virginia, West Virginia, and
Maryland.” In the 1950s, another award-winning band played under the
leadership of Capt. Charles A. Hill. Capt. Hill, who earned his A.B. and M.A.
from Ohio University, 1949 and 1950, respectively, belonged to honorary
societies and played in many bands. While serving in the U.S. Army from
1944-46, he played in the 7th Infantry Regimental Band and the 78th Division
Band. With Capt. Hill as bandmaster, the GMS band played at the State
Forest Festival in Elkins in 1954, and the GMS band was the official
representative for the state of West Virginia at the National Cherry Blossom
Festival in Washington, D.C., in 1955 (Brier Patch 1957). For many years
the band marched in the Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester.
The Fighting Cadets won many football and basketball
championships. The varsity football team, under Coaches “Tite” Turley
and Dave Taylor, was undefeated in 1956 and 1957 (and in 1906, 1924,
1934, and 1936). The usual sports rivals were the other Virginia military
schools: Staunton, Fork Union, Massanutten, Hargrave, and Fishburne. In
1957 and 1958, under Coach Al Morgan, the GMS basketball team won the
Eastern States Preparatory School Tournament championship. The rifle
team won the Second Army Interscholastic Matches and the VPI Annual
Invitational Tournament in 1957 (Brier Patch 1957).
Green-Briers, founded in 1920, was published monthly during the
school year. In 1948, under the tutelage of Col. Benjamin, “the Official
Newspaper of the Corps of Cadets” took First Honors in the annual State
Journalism Contest sponsored by WVU. Although many activity clubs
continued through the years, some changed according to cadets’ interests.
For several years there was a model airplane club, a chess club, a camera
club. The waiters’ club appeared now and then and in 1930 there was a new
polo team—with no matches, just for fun. (Horses, as might be expected,
wer