Jeff Bennett's Blog

Fitchburg won the National Basketball Championship in 1926, proudly supports the second oldest schoolboy Football Rivalry in the US with Leominster, has been hometown to Olympians Longsjo and Lawler, received the prestigious “All America City Award”…and has a Tournament of Roses Band as well.

It is the fiftieth anniversary of the Fitchburg High School Band’s triumphant cross country journey to Pasadena, CA, to participate in the 1962 Tournament of Roses Parade.  Fitchburg was the first high school band from Massachusetts to participate in this grand pageant and parade.

As it was reported in the Fitchburg Sentinel:

“Eighty-nine proud ones from Fitchburg High School,

Eighty-nine good will Ambassadors,

Eighty-nine on parade at Pasadena,

Eighty-nine million viewers on TV saw

Eighty-nine from Fitchburg High School on New Year’s Day of Sixty-Two.”

Those Eighty-nine musicians surely were Ambassadors and a group of great musicians under the direction of a very dynamic leader in Mr. Ed Hanjian.  The Fitchburg High School Band was lauded the “most outstanding high school band” in the 1962 Tournament of Rose Parade.

Those eighty-nine proudly played “Hey Look Me Over” as they marched down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena before the nation inviting all to take a look at this small industrious and proud mill city in Massachusetts.  Also reported in the Fitchburg Sentinel, “the appearance in Pasadena marked the early stages of what David Turner has called the social and economic renaissance of Fitchburg and the Montachusett region.”

Full disclosure, I was not even around on New Year’s Day of 1962, but I have witnessed the films that captured this event.  I am sure proud of my fellow members of the Red & Gray and all those who supported this historic trip.  This includes my Dad, Ted Bennett, who along with Mr. Hanjian were the architects of this endeavor.  It was a herculean task to raise over $28,000 in less than three months to send the band to California.  It was a tremendous community effort that included thousands coming together to will the band to Pasadena.

Happy New Year to all!  Happy fiftieth anniversary to the Fitchburg Tournament of Roses Band and it’s extended family…may “everything come up roses” for you in the years ahead!