Submitted by David McBee

By chance, Mary Bahr is the first band person I met. It was Pride weekend in Washington DC and DC’s Different Drummers had just performed. I missed the performance, but I saw Mary in her band shirt and holding her trumpet. I had been thinking about joining the band, so I stopped her to find out about it.

After I joined DCDD I learned that Mary was one of the founding members of the band in 1980. Over the years, Mary took some time off from the band, but she would return and perform with the band. That year was the band’s 20th anniversary year and the concert covered a lot of the history of our band.

Over the years I learned more about Mary. One year at band camp, someone asked her about the early years of the band.

She said it was great fun. Several members shared a house together. Band members would hold a band camp to rehearse and practice marching. Then the guys would go play. And at some point, some of the guys started getting sick. Like many others, Mary was one of the people who supported and cared for friends as AIDS and HIV hit our community. And, as happened in many other bands, helped to hold things together.

I also learned that Mary was one of the people who reached out to members of those other new gay bands in San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, Houston, Dallas, and Minneapolis. The group met in Chicago in 1982 and drew up documents that established the Lesbian and Gay Bands of America (LGBA).

Mary served as the first president of LGBA and she was very active in those early gatherings that were the first LGBA conferences including the Millennium March on Washington in 2000 and the concert at the historic Constitution Hall.

One day Mary, a trumpet player, said with a smile, “Interesting how the LGBA logo is a trumpet!”

Over the years, Mary has been an important link to our past as an organization. She has also been a supporter of the leadership. She never asserted her role as a founder over the leadership. As the organization grew and new members took the band in new directions, Mary was supportive of the growth and change. She made us realize that we cannot be stuck in the past but we need to embrace new members so our organization could keep going.

During DCDD’s 25th anniversary in 2005, Mary was on a panel with our conductor, Scott Barker, and LGBT legend, the late Frank Kameny. Mary talked about founding the band and striking out with an LGBT identity in 1980 and the impact the band had in Washington, DC in those days.

Mary has always brought a good sense of fun to the band as well. During the last few concerts that Mary played with DCDD we’d get to the intermission or the end of the concert and the audience would just sit there for a few minutes. Mary would call out from the middle of the band – “It’s intermission!” or “That’s it!”

Mary gets to concerts when she can and she is always a welcome guest and a great connection with the early days of the band as well as the LGBT presence in Washington, DC.