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Fred Lynch
Fred Lynch retired in 2018 after capturing images for the Southeast Missourian since 1975, in that time moving from black-and-white to color, from film to digital and to video. The blog title is a nod to an earlier era of news photography and the 4x5 Speed Graphic: It's more important to be there for the shot than to worry about technical details.
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SEMO Homecoming: Golden Eagles

Posted Friday, October 29, 2010, at 7:30 AM

The Golden Eagles Marching Band of Southeast Missouri State College is on the field at Houck Stadium during half-time of a homecoming game in this picture by G.D. Fronabarger. The band surrounds the homecoming queen and her court. The date is unknown, but was probably in the late 1950s or early 1960s. In the 1950s the college played its homecoming games at night.

excerpt from Southeast Missourian, Sept. 18, 1957:

College Band Show Planned

First appearance of the State College band as a marching unit--it played from its customary place in the stands at last week's game--will be made Saturday night between halves of the Indian-Western Kentucky football game.

Three home appearances of the marching band will each be marked by a different and elaborate half-time show, Director LeRoy F. Mason announced. He noted that the band this year will not be in uniform. Its increased size and a limited number of uniforms from last year will force it to march without the color which will come with new uniforms a year hence, Mr. Mason said.

The half-time show this week will be built around "Droodles," with a half-dozen formations taking position on the field so spectators may guess the characters these portray. The program will be narrated over the public address system.

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  • I count 7 couples and 2 majorettes inside the heart on left.

    -- Posted by Solelicious on Fri, Oct 29, 2010, at 11:06 AM

  • Marching bands are fake. Nobody could actually play those instruments, keeping time with all of the other instruments, while marching.

    The big drum is really a speaker and the music is pre-recorded.

    The wind instruments aren't even real, they are made of plastic.

    It's all phony, just like the moon landing...

    -- Posted by bobby62914 on Fri, Oct 29, 2010, at 10:11 PM

  • I am a Golden Eagles alum, and I will tell you that all of us who did graduate from Southeast truly identify more with being a member of the Golden Eagles than we do of being a SEMO graduate.

    Hate to tell you bobby62914, but we practiced... A LOT, and you are probably just bitter because you were awoken from a drunken slumber numerous Saturday mornings as we were getting ready for game day. It was all us baby, no canned music at all...

    -- Posted by dancediva on Sun, Oct 31, 2010, at 11:04 AM

  • Being a Golden Eagle 1963-67 was the greatest experience of my lifetime! Believe me, it was real. Wow, the excitement and hard work of memorizing where to march to in order to make those wonderful formations. I might even see me, a saxophone player, in that photo.

    -- Posted by Seiloni on Sun, Oct 31, 2010, at 2:04 PM
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    I have a picture of Leroy Mason and the band president from 1958 modeling the new uniform of blue with gold trim, white belts, gloves, white spats over black shoes from the Southeast Missourian publicity. So the picture above had to be taken in 1958, 59 or 60 or 61. When I became a freshman in fall of 1962, there were metal bleachers hiding the cliff and the building on that side was gone. Chief Sagamore would come out on a part of the cliff near Myers Hall, and stand when we played the alma mater.

    -- Posted by Satchamo on Mon, Nov 2, 2020, at 3:06 PM
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    @ Seiloni you couldn't have been in that particular picture, as the metal bleachers on the other side had been added by the time you were in the band.

    -- Posted by Satchamo on Mon, Nov 2, 2020, at 3:09 PM

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