University of Delaware Office of Public Relations The Messenger Vol. 5, No. 1/1995 Pride of Delaware moves to new beat When UD's Marching Band took to the field this fall, it marked the 50th anniversary of the "Pride of Delaware." The band began its second half-century by marching to a new beat-one led by its first-ever female director. Heidi Sarver, 31, took up the baton this fall, becoming one of only a handful of women college or university band directors in the nation. The College Band Directors' National Association in Texas estimates that, while 50 percent of all middle school marching band directors are women and 30 percent of high school marching band directors are women, the number falls to 10 percent at the university and college level. Sarver is only the fifth Marching Band director at the University. Her predecessors include the late J. Robert King, David P. Blackinton, Robert J. Streckfuss and Alan D. Hamant. She was selected after a national search this spring and officially assumed her new title Sept. 1. Fresh from her position as assistant director of bands at Temple University, Sarver, whose instrument is trumpet, bubbles with enthusiasm about the UD band. "Everything is even better than I anticipated," she said early in the semester. "The kids are wonderful. They've come farther in one month than I anticipated they would come all season. They are very receptive to the program that Jim [James Ancona, new assistant director] and I have. They really enjoy performing and understand that they are putting on a show." To get the Pride of Delaware in shape, Sarver held intensive band camp two and a half days before classes started and over Labor Day weekend. "We basically started when the sun came up and stopped when the sun went down. We worked from 8:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night." The hard work paid off. When the band took to the field for the first time Sept. 9, it was received by a roaring, appreciative crowd. Sarver is an experienced drill writer who over the past nine years has continued to put together many half-time pieces for the marching band of the University of Massachusetts, where she was a graduate assistant in trumpet. She also has designed drills for Temple's Diamond Marching Band and for many high school bands. "When I was at U. Mass, we loved traveling to Delaware," she recalls. "In Delaware, football is a whole-day experience and the audience is always great." Close friends, she said, can tell when she has designed a show, although she's not sure what gives it her signature. "Every drill writer is unique. It's a very personal, creative thing," she explains. Ironically, Sarver was not a drum major in her high school band. "I was the typical trumpet player who had solos, and the band director would always say he needed me in the field," she explains. Although she has known since ninth grade that she wanted to be a marching band director some day, she didn't work as a drum major until graduate school at U. Mass. -Beth Thomas