Frank B. Wickes papers
Collection
0384-SCPA
The Frank B. Wickes papers document the bandmaster's career and professional activities, including photographs, programs, and press from his three decades leading the band program at Louisiana State University. The papers also contain documentation of Wickes' early career as a basketball star for the University of Delaware.
The collection is open for research use. Materials from this collection must be used in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library's Irving and Margery Morgan Lowens Special Collections Room during
Copyright was not transferred to the University of Maryland with the gift of any copyrighted materials. All rights remain with the creators and rights holders. The University of Maryland Libraries is granted permission for the use in scholarly research by the Libraries’ patrons under fair use in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act.
To inquire about duplication of materials for research or for publication, please contact SCPA’s curator.
9.0 Linear Feet
This collection contains material related to the career of Frank B. Wickes, including over thirty scrapbook volumes containing press coverage, programs, awards and accolades, photographs, and other momentos of his four-decade as a bandmaster and educator. Documents include photographs and press from his early fame as a basketball player for Deleware University to the many awards and recognitions following his retirement as Louisiana State University's Director of Bands in 2010. Additionally, there is a series of movement charts and a set of copies made for a historical research project.
Frank B. Wickes (1938-2020) was a band director and professor. He served as Louisiana State University’s director of bands from 1980 to 2010, where he lead the marching band, conducted the LSU Wind Ensemble, and taught courses in wind conducting and wind literature. Before his appointment at LSU, Wickes was director of bands at the University of Florida (1973-1980) and taught in Delaware and Virginia public schools for 14 years. During his tenure as head of the Fort Hunt High School Band in Fairfax, Virginia, that band won the John Philip Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Trophy.
The Sudler Trophy award would be the first of many honors. In 1994 Wickes was featured on the cover of Instrumentalist Magazine. He won the Kappa Kappa Psi Distinguished Service to Music Medal in 1996. He was the Phi Beta Mu National Bandmaster of the Year in 1998. In 2008, the National Band Association awarded Wickes the Academy of Wind and Percussion Arts Award, the association’s highest honor. He was elected to the Louisiana Music Educators Hall of Fame in 2009. The National Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Band Conductors inducted him in 2010. That same year he won the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic Medal of Honor. LSU awarded him an honorary Doctor of Arts in 2019.
Wickes was an active member of many professional societies. He was elected to membership in the ABA in 1974. He would go on to serve in many capacities including a term as president of the organization from 1997 to 1998. He was also president of the National Band Association from 1988 to 1990 and president of the Southern Division of the CBDNA from 1988 to 1990.
To the extent possible, original order has been maintained. This collections consists of five series:
The material was donated by Dr. Damon Talley at Lousiana State University in January 2020
Part of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library