By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Radio, television, and the wide world of streaming have made listening to music at any time of the day as simple as pushing a button. Life was not always that way. For nearly 150 years, the Great Bend City Band has provided entertainment at some of the city's biggest events. Longtime Great Bend High School Band Director Joe Boley has compiled the band's history in a new book, "Have Baton Will Travel."
"There was always a band, it seems like, that was connected with any entertainment that went on around town," Boley said. "They played for soup suppers, parades, political rallies, just any number of occasions. They would even play for the opening of new businesses during the old days."
Boley was the GBHS band director from 1958-94, also serving as the City Band director for a stretch. In 1997, the Kansas State Historical Society reached out to Boley for information about city bands in one of its displays. That piqued his interest, and he spent time digging through old newspaper articles and traveling to locations associated with the band's 28 directors.
"A lot of times, I would purposefully go to a direction or a place where some of these guys come from," Boley said. "I went back into their early history as to where they were before they came to Great Bend, then I followed that up with where they went after they were in Great Bend. Thus the title, "Have Baton Will Travel."
The City Band played at just about everything in the early days, from parades, to political rallies, to birthdays. One time the band played at a wedding just a few blocks from a hanging.
"The early people that wanted the bands here were newspaper editors and the businessmen," Boley said. "If there was an occasion to have the band show off, they were ready. If there was an excursion train that came through, or they would go on booster trips to advertise the town, the editor was always pushing to have the town band. If someone else could have one in the county, why not Great Bend?"
Boley gave thanks to many who helped with the book, and he attended Monday's Great Bend City Council meeting to thank the body for supporting the band since 1924.
Copies of the book are available at Heart of Kansas Mercantile/Miss Pretty Pickles located at 1212 Main Street in Great Bend. Boley will also have a book signing there on May 18, and another signing at the Barton County Historical Society on May 22.