After spending 1950 in Bell’s old threads, Warren decided it was time his corps graduated from second-hand getups. But first he hit upon a notion that wouldn’t cost a dime. The corps needed its own hook, a moniker more memorable than Kosciuszko American Legion Post 712 Junior Drum and Bugle Corps.

At the time, most corps were referred to by their location, such as Norwood Park, or Aurora, or Lincoln-Fullerton. Or corps were identified with their sponsor, such as St. Michael’s or Gladstone, General George Bell, or Commonwealth Edison. Names like Imperials, Vanguard, and Ardennes came later. There was no clear-cut precedent for the boys of Kosciuszko Post to follow when it came to hatching their handle. But there was a corps they looked up to, known for its flashy style and sharp precision. The Austin Grenadiers played music everyone recognized, singable ditties like “Embraceable You,” “Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie” and “Peg O’ My Heart.” The Austin corps’ name evoked military pomp and dramatic flair the Logan Square boys ached to copy. “To have a name kinda like the Grenadiers was not such a bad thing,” Alm said.

After clearing it with the post, Warren pitched the idea of a new name to the boys, leaving it up to them to decide. There was an outpouring of excitement from the ranks, and a long list of names. Standing out was one that drew inspiration from a new brand of tobacco. Cavalier cigarettes had a swashbuckling image, epitomized by the dashing gent stenciled in red and black on every pack. The boys voted, and opted to incorporate the logo as well. As a final touch, bugle instructor Art Gurekas added Chicago to the name, ostensibly to differentiate the corps from any other Cavaliers stalking the drum corps circuit.

The marriage of moniker and image marked a final departure from the corps’ Boy Scout past. The name and logo would guide the corps’ choice of music, uniform and drill design for decades to come, stir the membership’s spirits and give fans their “Standing Man” to rally behind. “Standing erect, but at a jaunty angle, complete with plumed hat, sword and cape, this logo has been our trademark on everything from bass drum heads to stationery,” Alm said. “The Chicago Cavaliers were born.”

Then came what Don Warren calls the best move the Cavaliers ever made.

Suitably christened, the corps needed to outfit itself in attire befitting a new era. But paper drives and raffles wouldn’t pick up the tab this time, and although the Post could muster up pocket change when Warren found himself in a pinch, more than the usual capital was needed in this case. Warren met with George Kozy, who had connections to the board at Avondale Savings and Loan, and got the OK for a bank loan. “The decision was whether to spend the money to go to the 1951 Legion national competition, or buy the new uniforms. We couldn’t do both,” Warren said. “The Post kinda backed us up. They promised that if we didn’t make the payments, they would. They really stuck their necks out.”

It was another example of the support Warren and the corps couldn’t live without. Although the Post had no budget to support the Cavaliers, per se, and the corps soon raised enough money to pay off the uniforms itself, “Kozy got my tit out of the wringer a couple times on fundraisers that didn’t fund anything,” Warren said. “It was never big dollars, but George would come through. He was just a good guy, easy to work with. He would always bend over backwards to try to help. And if it was just impossible, he’d tell you up front.”

With funding in place, the corps gathered in the winter of 1950-51 to brainstorm uniform styles and colors. Again, Warren left the finer points in the boys’ hands. “It was their drum corps,” he explained, “I just ran the thing.” Design was practically uncontested, Warren Alm remembered. Images of Bell Corps’ shimmering blue satin marched through their memories. The Cavaliers ordered the same black pants and shakos—military-style headgear—with white trim, with a big silver buckle to anchor the wide, white belt. But the color of the blouses was to be uniquely their own. New processes enabled dye-makers to unveil a selection of shades that was practically fluorescent. “There were two colors that were very popular,” Don Warren said. “The fuchsia, a kind of pinkish red, and chartreuse, which was lime green. Clothes, automobiles, even homes were painted these colors.” The boys zeroed in on chartreuse.

“We had seen samples of (the color) in various sport jackets… and the effect was electrifying,” Alm said. “The mental picture we had of ourselves in those 220-volt chartreuse blouses had us all drooling with anticipation.”

Drum major Jarvis Fiedler, who would later make a career as a successful designer, was commissioned to draw up a color model for tailors. When Warren presented the illustrations to Marcus Rubin uniform company, however, he was told the color was a fad. If the Cavaliers were banking on chartreuse as their indelible identity, they would be in for a shock several years later when tastes had wiped the shade from catalogs. So the company’s uniform salesman made Warren an offer—he would cut two samples for the Cavaliers, one in chartreuse, the other in Kelly green.

The samples were modeled for the boys at rehearsal. The excitement of getting measured for new uniforms was dampened by the realization their beloved chartreuse would likely fade after one summer of service, Alm remembered. “You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. We sat there and looked at each other with rejection written all over our faces. Nobody knew what to say. Finally it became clear that we would have to make another choice.”

The Cavaliers’ trademark Kelly Green was born. It was a fortuitous decision. No other corps was wearing the color. A lot of marching units donned red, blue, or black, but the green stood out in shiny satin.

The boys donned their new duds for the first time during dress rehearsal in spring 1951 at Welles Park. They were so excited, they ran through the drill twice, Alm said, “because once just wasn’t enough to get us down from our high.” The ranks were ragged, but at least the uniform was sharp. As a footnote, the uniform company was right. “Those sports jackets we originally saw had faded to a pale, pastel green in one year,” Alm said.

Warren remembered the first competition the Cavaliers entered in the green, black and white. “A lot of people didn’t know who the hell we were. But we now had our own name, and we had our own uniform, and it was obvious the boys were really letting the drum corps world know: ‘Here we are, come and beat us.’ Now, they looked better than they actually were, but they were good. We were now a corps to contend with, and I was very proud.”

The uniform was accented by black shakos with white fountain plumes, white shoes and white cotton gloves. “Polishing white was a pain in the nose,” Jarvis Fiedler said. “My drum major sash—my mother had to take a lot of care of that. So much washing and ironing. And I get dirty very quickly. I’m a pig, so anything white would get dirty in a flash. I have no idea how.”

“Lots of sweat stains,” Egeland remembered. “Taking your shirt off after a parade, boy, you had to hold your nose.”

Fiedler’s mother wasn’t the only parent concerned about keeping the group’s newfound flash from unraveling. During a parade down Milwaukee Avenue, a route they marched often, the group paused before Fleischman’s Liquor Store at Diversey. “Ron Allan passed out,” Louise Bardos remembered. “He didn’t go completely out. He ended up on his knees, and his mother was right there. She grabbed hold of him. ‘Get up, get up!’ she said. ‘You’re gonna ruin your new uniform!’”

The Cavaliers’ new clothes infused the ranks with a measure of flair, but the group was still looked upon as a curiosity by many in the neighborhood. “I think that was common,” instructor Dick Snyder said. “You’d go into a crowd and they didn’t know anything about drum corps. You’d mention the Cavaliers. ‘Is that some baseball team?’”

“Our parents just tolerated it, I suppose,” Bob Egeland said. “I know my dad always wondered where the hell I was.”

But as the corps became entangled in the competitive world of weekend shows, exhibition parades, standing for inspection—and all the practice time on weeknights they could muster to improve their scores—parents caught on, and caught the drum corps bug themselves. While their attention and support was welcome, Don Warren wanted to preserve the club atmosphere the boys had created. Unlike other corps, run by parents’ organizations, Warren kept the authority with him and select peers, including Louise Bardos and eventually, corps original Sal Ferrera. None of them was older than 25—and that was just fine with them. “Parents would never agree,” Warren explained. “‘Why wasn’t my kid made the drum major?’ That kind of stuff.”

Bardos got an eyeful of parent meddling at the 1951 national championships, when she traveled with the Austin Grenadiers and observed the Norwood Park Imperials. In those days, every corps wore white shoes—except Norwood, whose parents didn’t believe their kids could keep their shoes clean. “In the Grenadiers, there was a lot of infighting with the parents over everything,” Bardos said. “It was like the president and his little bunch were against the secretary and her little bunch. They ran the corps, and there was stress in the corps because of it. They had a hard time deciding whether to have powdered sugar donuts or chocolate donuts at the Bingo.” Bardos returned from nationals adamant that any Cavaliers parents’ organization be kept from interfering in the kids’ corps.

Warren had served as manager from the corps’ earliest iterations. It seemed logical to keep the enterprise under his control. He incorporated the Cavaliers in 1952 as a nonprofit organization. He established a board of directors, choosing Bardos as secretary, and drawing support from trusted adults, installing Martin McDonnell as treasurer and veterans post confidante F. George Kozy as vice-president. “And the board, I ran it,” Warren said. “Nobody ever told me what to do. I’m not trying to be a smartass, saying that, but that’s exactly what it was. We didn’t have elections. This was Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship, only I was a little nicer.”

McDonnell, father of Boy Scout and corps original Jim, was relied upon to mind the corps’ cash reserves, such as they were, because “I always felt I shouldn’t do that,” Warren said. “There could be the perception that, you know, ‘if we donate a buck there’s 50 cents going into Warren’s pocket.’ (McDonnell) handled it, and I watched him.”

With incorporation came legitimacy, and a comfortable distance from the influence of parents. Warren nurtured their involvement, however, by encouraging parents to form their own organization—separate, but related to the Cavaliers. The idea wasn’t a far cry from the way things were done in Boy Scouts. During troop meetings and camp outs, kid patrol leaders and teenage assistant scoutmasters kept order. Corps moms and dads organized as the Cavaliers Booster Club. Its mission: to serve as “full-time cheering squad, fund-raising organization, sandwich crew” and pillar of support. Art Mix Sr., father of corps members Bernie, Art Jr. and Jerry, served as the club’s first president; Clem Wis, its second.

Warren didn’t hesitate to draw on his elders’ advice and talents. His mother, Mary, kept the corps’ books before McDonnell, a task carried over from her days tracking the troop’s treasury. Warren visited the Fiedlers’ and Bardos’ parents whenever he wanted to gauge the opinion of corps families. Paul Magee, husband of the corps’ second secretary and unofficial den mother, Millie, served as equipment manager. Magee got tired of one particular boy misplacing his cymbals, so Warren assigned him to keep track of the corps’ burgeoning inventory of uniforms and instruments. Mrs. Fiedler arranged to have the corps’ uniforms cleaned.

Though none of the Cavaliers’ families could shell out big bucks to fuel the group’s endeavors, with their parents’ support, the corps hosted post-season dances, filling program books with paid advertisements real and surreal. “In one of those books Earl and I put in an ad for a cleaning service or something,” Bob Egeland remembered. “It said, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’”

Another staple of 1950s fund-raising was the paper roll. The boys canvassed neighborhoods, collecting newspapers to sell to florists, making about $30 to $35 on a good day. Scrap yards collected paper and cardboard, old iron. The boys gathered their booty on a garage floor and weighed it at the scrap yard, trading it for change. Warren saved books of stamps, worth about $3. “It didn’t make any difference whether or not we got more money,” he said. “It was never enough.” Warren still lived with his parents, and though when times got tight he would advance some money to the organization, he could never afford to put up any non-refundable cash. “The more you get, the more you spend,” he said. “I wonder how we survived.”

Horns were bought second-hand, Louise Bardos remembered. They conducted penny raffles to raise money to fully instrument the outfit. “Some kid would wander in off the street,” she said. “‘You’re gonna play second soprano,’ we’d tell him. But now we gotta go out and buy a horn!”—which cost $40 to $50.

The boys took jobs. Many found employment in corps parent Chuck McCurdy’s Coca-Cola plant. Warren Alm worked at Kemper insurance, Don Warren’s domain, for several summers as clerk and document-filer extraordinaire. He also found summer employment caddying at golf courses, which fit better around corps weekends. “There were an awful lot of late Sunday night returns from shows,” Alm said. “And then we had to get up and go to work Monday morning without a lot of sleep. That was always a drag.”

But the corps’ triumphant weekend turnouts lightened the step. The sight of grandmothers, uncles, cousins, siblings and school chums lining the streets and clapping them onward made the end of the week something to savor. “They’d go through hell and high water,” Alm said of parents. “Because they probably knew if we weren’t going to drum corps rehearsals, marching around two, three nights a week, what kind of mischief we’d be getting into. They could see past this as not just something to keep us occupied for days and weekends and whatnot.”