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Cadets Age-Out Wins Autographed Halftime Magazine Cover

Story and Photo By Elizabeth Geli
Posted September 2009

The Cadets member Jim Watkins got a big surprise as he was packing up the equipment truck after the 2009 DCI World Championship in Indianapolis.

“My parents walked up with a big cardboard box, and I was like, ‘What the heck is that?’” Watkins says.

Inside that giant box was a poster-version of Halftime Magazine’s July/August 2009 cover commemorating 75 years of The Cadets, surrounded by a matte signed by all of The Cadets staff and some board members--including several Hall of Famers.

“He was very excited,” says Kathy Watkins, Jim’s mother, who traveled to Indy from Drexel Hill, Pa. “He loved it and will be very glad to have that in years to come. We were kind of amazed; we totally did not expect to win it.”

Halftime Magazine sold raffle tickets for $5 at its booth in the DCI Marketplace. Fifty percent of the net profits went to The Cadets organization.

Watkins marched baritone in The Cadets for three years; this was his age-out year. He is currently in his senior year as a trombone performance major at Rutgers University in New Jersey and hopes to someday play in an orchestra.

“The photo is really nice, but more importantly to me is all the staff and admin having signed it around the border,” Watkins says. “I’ve personally worked with pretty much everyone whose name is on that poster. It was a pretty nice age-out gift.”

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