Southwind

Southwind Drum and Bugle Corps is an Open Class junior field competition corps based in Mobile, Alabama.

The year was 1980. In Montgomery, Alabama, half a dozen high school students wanted to be in a local drum corps. Since none existed, they founded Southwind after setting up a non-profit organization and getting a charter as Explorer Post 2009 from the local Boy Scout council, The Chicago-to-Miami passenger train known as, "The South Wind" passed through Montgomery right beside the corps' practice field, so they adopted the name for their corps. .. From their Montgomery base, Southwind took part in Drum Corps International (DCI) competition in 1981 and 1982 before going inactive for seven years.

In 1989, with newly organized backing, the corps began to compete in Class A-60, then Class A contests. Southwind won the DCI Class A World Championship in 1991, and in 1992, the corps defended its title by winning the renamed DCI Division II World Championship.

By 1997, though financially secure and still attracting a sizable membership, it was becoming difficult for the small nucleus of boosters and management to keep the corps operating effectively. That same year, several members of the Madison Scouts' design team wrote for and advised Southwind, thus starting an important relationship between the corps. In the fall of 1997, Southwind Director Dave Bryan, who has been a part of Southwind from the beginning, approached Madison's Scott Stewart about taking over management and direction of the corps. The newly formed liaison made Southwind a part of the Madison Drum & Bugle Corps Association.

Southwind sat out the 1998 season and moved their base of operations to Lexington, Kentucky. The move north allowed Southwind to participate in DCI Midwest, to be closer to their parent organization in Wisconsin, and to draw on strong music programs in the surrounding states. As one of three corps within the Madison organization, Soutwind placed 15th, 13th, 15th, and 18th at DCI.

In 2002, the Madison Scouts dropped to 14th place--- the first time the corps had missed DCI Finals since also placing 14th at the inaugural Championships in 1972. Reorganizing after the season, the Madison Drum and Bugle Corps Association separated itself from both Southwind and Capitol Sound Drum and Bugle Corps of Madison. After having moved away from its financial base in Montgomery, Southwind now found itself also without the additional personnel base the short-lived merger had provided. Once more independent, Southwind formed the Bluegrass Youth Performance Corporation as a sponsoring organization.

Souhwind received a stern lesson in the financial realities of drum corps in July of 2004 when a bus, essential to keeping the corps on the road, blew an engine. The $15,000 replacement cost could have been enough to bankrupt the corps and end its life. That was but one of the financial realities faced as the corps continued as a large, well-respected, but second-tier, Division I corps. However, as the Great Recession got underway in 2007, the economic conditions led the corps to another period of inactivity

In 2011, control of the Southwind Drum & Bugle Corps was taken over by the Southwind Alumni Association, Inc. The group spent 2011 through 2013 in rebuilding the organization, raising funds, and searching for sponsors to help return the corps to the competition field. Along with everthing else, they also returned the corps to Alabama, relocating it in the Mobile area.

In November and December 2013, Southwind held its first recruitment and audition camps since leaving the field in 2007. In 2014 the organization fielded a 50-member SoundSport team competing against other SoundSport teams and performing in exhibition at some DCI shows as a route to reentering DCI competition in 2015.

In early May 2015, DCI approved Southwind's return as an active Open Class corps. That year, the corps appeared in five shows in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi and followed up with six contests in 2016.

In 2017, Southwind competed in a dozen contests in eight states, and the corps returned to the DCI Open Class Championships and DCI World Championships for the first time since 2007, placing ninth in Open Class semifinals and 31st in World Class prelims.

In 2019, after advancing its placement at the DCI Open Class Championships to 5th from 10th in 2018, Southwind was named DCI's "Most Improved Corps."

[Southwind Alumni Association, Inc.; Drum Corps World, multiple issues; A History of Drum & Bugle Corps, Vickers, ed.; Johnathan Neuls, RAMD, 10/16/98; Drum Corps International]