Concert will celebrate trip to Europe in 1970

Some 53 years ago, 87 Columbia Falls High School band members and 22 chaperones departed for Europe to put on several concerts for largely adoring crowds.

This Sunday at 2 p.m., some of them will get back together again at the Little Theater at the high school to reminisce about the trip and play tunes from that journey.

Pulling off the journey back in 1970 was no small feat, Don Lawrence recalled. He was the school band director back then.

He said the idea came from the German wife of a retired Air Force veteran, Mrs. Richard Edsall, (newspaper stories of the day didn’t mention her first name) who had two kids in Columbia Falls High School at the time. She suggested a trip to Europe, to put on a show for folks and to showcase the talents of the Columbia Falls kids.

Lawrence was a renowned band director and managed to get the most out of his musicians, no matter what their skill level. He founded the Columbians, the school’s award-winning jazz band.

The community went to work raising funds for the trip and Lawrence said he went to work getting the band ready for the trip.

The idea was formed early in the school year and the trip wasn’t until April, so he had time to sharpen the musical minds and skills of his players.

The community raised more than $14,000 for the trip, with fundraising spearheaded by Basil Everin, according to stories of the day in the Hungry Horse News.

They took buses to Calgary in late April and then flew to Amsterdam, Netherlands, spending three weeks playing and touring in Europe visiting West Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Lichtenstein and Switzerland.

Jerry Knutson was a sophomore playing first trumpet for the Columbians at the time.

“It wasn’t just a band thing, it was a community thing,” he said.

It was also their first time in an airplane for most of them.

“I bet for virtually all of us, it was our first flight,” he recalled.

He said the round trip tickets were $225 apiece.

Knutson said the Europe trip was a delight., He recalled one night the wind picked up and he was playing a trumpet solo in front of a large crowd.

The wind kept blowing his music and a woman came up from the audience and held it down on the stand for him.

He recalled the Columbians would play gigs across the county to raise cash for the trip.

Hungry Horse News editor Mel Ruder even made the trip over to Europe to document the concerts, though he didn’t stay the full three weeks.

For two weeks after the trip, the newspaper featured photos of the countries and the band playing in them as well as students simply touring Europe.

Allen Slater, director of the Flathead Community Band, said the initial plan for a commemorative concert was the 50th anniversary in 2020. But the pandemic was in full swing so it was postponed.

Slater has been organizing the commemorative concert which will include some of the original 87 members, including Knutson and local Luci Yeats, who had family in the Germany at the time.

Yeats (who was Luci Rogers back then) recalled spending two nights with the cousins — who she barely knew. They found out through family members that she was playing and just showed up one night.

Still, Lawrence let her go with the family, rather than stay with the group.

She also recalled the hostels they stayed in as being very nice, or pretty rustic. One had a trough for a sink, and it didn’t smell all that great.

There were also the typical teenage shenanigans — there was no drinking age over there and a few classmates got pretty drunk.

“Some kids went a little wild,” she said.

The Sunday show will feature six tunes from the original concerts, including the New York Hippodrome March, Concerto Americana and Ode to a Trumpet to name a few.

Slater will play in the concert as well with the show conducted by Larry Gookin, a student of Lawrence’s who went on to be the Director of Bands at Central Washington University.