At one time, more than 400 boys were said to comprise Springfield's famed Boy Scout Band, a group proclaimed as the largest of its kind in the world. And it’s all thanks to R. Ritchie Robertson, Springfield’s beloved music man. Although his Boy Scout Band is long gone, the beat of his legacy keeps going on through the Scotch Lassies, or as they’re known today, the Kilties.
“We are the oldest female uniform drum and bugle corps in the United States. We wear the traditional Scottish dress of the kilt, the tartan, all the things,” said Sunday Wildschuetz, the group’s sponsor. “We have been performing for 100 years. it's just really a legacy that we have here at Central.”
Wildschuetz was a Kiltie herself years ago, as was Lori Scott, a retired music educator from Springfield. Scott was so impacted by the program that she focused her master’s thesis on Robertson.
“The whole reason he started the Scotch Lassies was so the women could have an opportunity like the boys were getting in the Boy Scout band,” Scott said. “And I think that says a lot for the foresight that R. Richie Robertson had to offer something for the women as well as the boys.”
A native of Scotland, Robertson and his family moved to Missouri from Kansas in 1916 when he was hired as Springfield Public School’s musical director. The Star Spangled Scotsman, as he became known, quickly made an impact on the Queen City.
He organized at least 14 different musical groups here, ranging from students at school to the Shrine Band. Among them was the Boy Scout Band, which began in 1920. A group of about 50 boys grew into bands of different levels, creating a pipeline of talent.
“it was a different time,” Scott said. “People didn't have cell phones and TVs and computers to take away from their extra time. So their extra time was (spent) making music.”
The Boy Scout Band quickly crescendoed. It was so exceptional that newspapers noted famed bandleader John Phillip Sousa himself allowed the group to play with his ensemble in Springfield. Another account says he actually directed the group for part of the performance. It also feels relevant to mention that, years later, the newspaper noted a special person who was in Sousa’s band back then: Meredith Wilson, who later wrote the famed musical, “The Music Man.”
The band and the Kilties repeatedly went on the road to serve as ambassadors of Springfield. The band even performed for U.S. President Harding at the Rotary International Convention in St. Louis.
Local leaders were thrilled with the publicity Robertson brought to Springfield. Lester E. Cox, the namesake of CoxHealth, was a key band booster and leader. The Kiwanis Club voted Robertson as Springfield's “most useful individual asset” and sent him to Scotland on vacation. On two occasions, local leaders bought him cars in appreciation. Westminster College in Fulton even awarded him an honorary doctorate in music.
Robertson died in 1939. His son, James, continued his musical work at Springfield Public Schools and through the Boy Scout Band. The younger Robertson also founded the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and helped organize today’s Missouri Music Educators Association.
However, times were changing. A decade after the elder Robertson died, so did his famed Boy Scout Band.
But Robertson’s legacy wasn’t over — isn’t over, I should say. Because in 2026, the Kilties celebrate their first century.
“I have a lot of – I call them legacy Kilties,” said Wildschuetz. “My daughter is currently on the corps. My best friend came from the corps.'
“And I have three current Kilties who I had their mothers when I was their sponsor," she said.
It takes a lot of work to be a Kiltie. The tartan-clad girls of Central High School rehearse and fundraise often to support their work. That led them to the U.S. Presidential Inauguration parade in 1989, and today to many regional events where they march and play percussion instruments, horns and bagpipes.
“All of our instruments are self-taught by the older Kilties,” said Wildschuetz. “No one comes in with any kind of experience. Very few have had an experience with an instrument. Some do, like they've maybe been in band, but we just pass down that knowledge from girl to girl, and that's how it's been for the past 100 years. So it's actually kind of amazing.”
“My whole entire family has been doing this since, like forever,” said Malea Johnson, the group’s majorette. And so it's kind of just a tradition passed down from girl to girl to girl.”
When I spoke to Kilties past and present, a common theme I heard was the concept of sisterhood and being connected to a greater mission. Something that also strikes me is how this tradition is still unfolding. It links people with deep family connections — like you just heard Malea Johnson share, all the way to others like Alyssa Kurth who is the first in her family to be a Kiltie.
“You don't meet a lot of people who are a part of something that is as big as this,” Kurth said. “And so just to say that, ‘yes, I am a part of such a long tradition of so many strong, amazing women’ – it’s like, I'm also a strong, amazing woman. It’s really cool to be part of something like that.”
