Big Bertha (drum)
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Big Bertha is a bass drum used by the Longhorn Band of The University of Texas at Austin. The drum is considered by the University to be the world's largest drum. However, at 100 inches in diameter, rumble, the bass drum for blue thunder of the Seattle Seahawks claims to have surpassed Big Bertha in size. [1]
[edit] Description
Big Bertha measures eight feet (2.4 m) in diameter, 44 inches (1.1 m) in depth, and stands 10 feet (3 m) tall when on its four-wheeled cart. The giant drum weighs more than 500 pounds (227 kg). It is wheeled onto the field for the half time show during varsity football games, and is used in other occasions such as parades and spirit rallies. The drum is managed by the Bertha Crew, sometimes called "drum wranglers". The crew moves the drum, but the drum is rarely played. Big Bertha is nicknamed the "Sweetheart of the Longhorn Band".
[edit] History
In 1922, the University of Chicago commissioned C.G. Conn Instruments to build a big bass drum for the school. Its first use was in the 1922 game versus rival Princeton University. When the University of Chicago ended its varsity football program, the drum was stored under the school stadium and later became radioactively contaminated by research for the Manhattan Project conducted at the stadium during the 1940s.
Colonel D. Harold Boyd, a former Longhorn Band member, brought the drum to the University in 1955 after purchasing it from the University of Chicago for $1.00. The drum had to be decontaminated before being used by the University.
In addition to radioactivity decontamination, in March of 1980 the Kappa Kappa Psi pledge class "YK2OWAC" hand scraped years of toxic lead paint from the body of the drum and the drum's trailer returning the finish to a high luster. The 6 pledges' names are inscribed on the inner wall of the drum. Their names are- Preston Howard Blomquist, Brian William Erickson, Jerry Don Hayes, Jr., Hal Marvin Klein, David Paul McGookey, David Paul Martino. The 6 names can only be seen when the drum heads are removed.
In 2005, the University celebrated the 50th anniversary of Big Bertha.
