John Flowers has won an individual snare drum national championship, and the Reading Buccaneers drum line he instructed had the high percussion score three years in a row when the Bucs won the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) national title in 1960, ‘61 and ‘62. The Bucs won high percussion, and top score overall again in 1968, while winning the Drum Corps Associates (DCA) world title. He was drum instructor for the Buccaneers for 15 years, from 1959 to 1974. He was a major influence in judging changes to give credit to drum line visual appeal through the use of stick flips, eye-catching routines and visual presentations. His innovations include adding a voice to the percussion section by mounting bongo drums on a bass drum. He also developed a cymbal “tree”, made up of a harness to hold five different sized sets of cymbals. He created voices within the snare section, with three different sized snare drums in a section of nine to create different sounds. He has served as a judge with the Pennsylvania chapter of the All American Judging Association and the National Judges Association, and has served as head of quality control for percussion for DCA.
