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This Veteran’s Day, Missouri State University will hold a taps ceremony on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. KSMU’s Adam Hammons asked what else MSU will be doing to honor our veterans.
(medley of taps)
That’s what it’ll sound like next week when 79 trumpeters will play Taps in staggered succession. Taps is the somber and recognizable tune used nightly in the military to signify lights out. It’s also used during flag ceremonies and funerals. On Veteran’s day, Thursday, November 11, the trumpeters and buglers will sound the tune across the Missouri State campus in a tribute to veterans.
Roger Stoner is the associate dean of the college of arts and letters and helped organize the cascade taps project.
“Hopefully [those who hear it] have remembrances of family members or friends or something that have participated in the service and know what the sacrifice is and that it’s a meaningful time. We hope that they will stop and pay their respects and then go on with their daily activities after the cascade has passed them.”
It’s called a cascade because the trumpeters will not be all in one spot, nor will they play at the same time. The 79 musicians will be spaced all around campus at 50 to 70 yard intervals. At seven minutes before 11 a.m., one person will start and the next player won’t begin until the first three notes of Taps have been played.
The sounds will eventually die down, with the last musician playing at Carrington Hall on campus at 11 a.m.
Eric Schrantz is a sophomore Pride Band member at Missouri State.
“It’ll be like an echo taps. You know one person will start and the next person will start and the next player will start. So it’s almost like taps will be moving across campus. And I think that that effect is something you can’t get anywhere else.”
Schrantz will be joined by 55 other members of the Pride Band and players from Evangel University, Drury University, and three community bands.
Missouri State will also hold its annual Veteran’s Day Breakfast between eight and ten in the morning in the Plaster Student Union Ballroom. After the Taps project, there will be a carillon concert playing patriotic songs outside Meyer Library.
For KSMU News, I’m Adam Hammons.