In May 2022, Professor Dave Woodley passed away. He earned two degrees from Iowa and served as drum major and graduate teaching assistant in the HMB before serving as director from 1991 to 1992. He went on to serve as director of the Indiana University Marching Hundred for nearly 30 years. Professor Woodley had a profound impact on an entire generation of marching Hawkeyes, and after the Homecoming game last fall, our alumni joined with the current band to honor his memory in the playing of one of his iconic music arrangements. His son Darin, a member of the Marching Hundred, was with us.
At Homecoming, Dr. Bush shared the letter below, written in memory of Professor Woodley. We also bring you a video of 500+ members of the Hawkeye Marching Band, past and present, in Dave Woodley's arrangement of "Pinball Wizard."
An open letter in recognition of
Professor David C. Woodley, Ninth Director of the Hawkeye Marching Band:
By the time I got to know Dave in 2012, he was already well-established in his role as director of the Marching Hundred at Indiana University, and I was just beginning grad school here at Iowa. Dave also served as chairman for the Athletic Band Committee of the Big Ten Band Directors Association, where he led important discussions about current events influencing athletic band activities in the Big Ten conference— this is where I first got to know him. He was not the most senior director in the room, but Dave seemed to be a friend and mentor to everyone (even to the grad students on the periphery). His personality was larger than life, and people gravitated to him. While he was a Hoosier through and through, he was very open about his love for the state of Iowa, and what the University of Iowa and the Hawkeye Marching Band meant to him. It would still be years before I truly understood what Dave meant to our program.
After I graduated from Iowa, I was fortunate enough to stay in the Big Ten, as an assistant director of athletic bands at Penn State, and to continue to count Dave as a colleague in the conference. When it was announced that I would be taking on the role of thirteenth director of the Hawkeye Marching Band, Dave was one of the first people to reach out to congratulate me.
As I settled into my role as director, I began to dive deeper into the history of the Hawkeye Marching Band. It became very clear that Dave was one of the most important and prominent figures in our history. People called him “the colonel.” To date, he is the only person to have held all the positions of band member, drum major, teaching assistant, and director of the Hawkeye Marching Band. Every alum seemed to know him, and every person associated with the Hawkeye Marching Band during his tenure had a story about him. I became very glad to call him a friend and colleague.
If you study the history and read through testimony of our alums, it doesn’t take long to see that Dave led the band with integrity, passion, and levity. No matter what role Dave was in when our alumni knew him, it is obvious that he had a lasting impact on everyone with whom he crossed paths. Our organization is better because he was a part of it.
I am grateful to have known him, and I deeply appreciate his legacy that lives on in the Hawkeye Marching Band, thanks to the roles he played in many stages of the band’s history.
With gratitude,
Dr. Eric W. Bush
13th Director of the Hawkeye Marching Band
