D I A N A

As a baby, I didn't learn how to walk--my upright, two-footed view of life seemed to begin with marching. While my parents marched with the Theodore Roosevelt Post 469's Rough Riders men's colorguard and the women's auxiliary, my siblings, cousins and I were given gold capes and marched behind our folks as "Teddy's Tag-a-Longs." It seemed I never WATCHED parades--I was always IN them!

When I was 11, my 3 brothers and sister became part of the Caballeros Drum and Bugle Corps, a military-style marching group sponsored by Post 469. When I became "of age" at 12, I reluctantly became part of the group as well--I didn't really think I'd like all this "marching stuff" and didn't want to join but my entire family was already involved so it didn't seem like I had much choice. (Two brothers were in the drum line, the other in the horn line, my sister twirled flag, my mom chaperoned on corps trips, and my dad drove the equipment truck!)

As it turned out, I LOVED it and stayed in drum corps until I was around 19. The Caballeros saw the formation of the Buckeye Drum and Bugle Corps (which I marched with for the bulk of my time in corps) and later merged back with the Caballeros. I started marching with a sabre, then moved to pike (flag) and, finally, rifle.

(In addition, during high school, I was also a member--and then captain--of the West Tech Flag Corps. "LOVED those pom-poms on our boots!" she said, sarcastically).

Shortly after that, I joined my sister for two years to march with "The Commadears," a senior women's color guard sponsored by a VFW post. We won the VFW National Championship both of those years (yes, I have a medal to prove it)!

Through that organization, I was offered the opportunity to teach the Lakewood High School flag corps (OK, the other two women who were first offered declined the honor so it became mine by default, but it was still a very cool experience!)

A pending move out of the country (no, the law was NOT involved, thank you very much--it was job related) made me bid "adieu" to the great kids and staff at Lakewood.

I spent the next several years NON-involved in ANYTHING marching-related, although my sister had put together a small color guard through the American Legion Post where we were still members (our grandfather had helped found that post--Post 469---LONG before we came along). Anyway, while preparing the guard for an upcoming State competition, she had asked me to stop by practice one night to "check them out." Naturally, the night I showed up just happened to be right after one of the members broke her foot (way to go, Evie--did you do that on purpose?), making her unable to march the spot--and the competition was now only 2 weeks away. So I marched the spot for them that evening...and stayed.

We won the competition that year...and several more in the years to come. The rest is just silly history...go to our "Photos" pages to catch the pride and the fun! She may not get much sleep, but she's always got a song in her heart. (www.dianatyler.com)