Mike Leckrone has been directing the UW’s Marching Band for 50 years — so long that it can be hard to remember that anyone else ever did it. (It can also be hard to remember that Director of Bands and Director of the Marching Band have, from time to time, been different jobs. But let’s focus on the Marching Band.) Leckrone wasn’t the first director, nor even the first legend: Ray Dvorak (1934–68, inventor of the “Varsity” arm wave) and Edson Morphy (1920–34; Morphy Recital Hall is named for him) were two of his predecessors. The other Marching Band directors, in order of disappearance, include:
- John Gates ’59, MS’61 (1968–69)
- Jim Christensen ’57, MMusic ’64 (1961–68)
- Don Marcoullier ’49, MS’56 (1951–56)
- W.E. Yates (1918–20)
- J. E. Saugstad (1915–18)
- Charles Mann (1909–15)
- Capt. H. E. Owen (1905–09)
- Charles Nitzschke (1899–1905)
- O.W. Joslin (1898)
- E.C. May (1895–97)
- Spencer Beebe (1891–94)
- Lt. J.A. Cole LLB1890 (1889–90)
- C. M. Williams LLB1894 (1887–88)
- F.O. May (1885–86)