| band |
The Pride of the Colquitt County High School
50 th Regiment Band
by Faith Morrell
When you think about one of the greatest high school bands the Colquitt County 50th Regiment Band always comes to mind, but it wasn’ t always that way. There was a time that the band was basically unknown to most people outside of Moultrie.
When Don Medders came to Moultrie and took over the band in 1978, the band was in pretty bad shape( the students had no leader and no music), and he wanted to remake it. Supposedly the administration told him when he was hired that he could do whatever he wanted as long as they could recognize“ The Star-Spangled Banner” at football games. So he knew he had his work cut out for him. In 1979 fellow band leader Diane Barfield was brought in to help restart the program, as it had literally fallen apart. She and Medders had been band leaders together in Alabama; both had built a really successful program. Medders was the head director with Barfield as the assistant leader. They had to basically start from scratch, but the students they had were very eager so they had instant success.
The 50th Regiment was named for a Civil War unit from this area. Their uniforms at the end of the Seventies matched the Casper Troopers drum and bugle corps, which had cowboy uniforms in black and gold. The marching band is shown here in those early uniforms on the field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.
10 MoultrieScene AUGUST 2025