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The Virginia Highlands Pipes and Drums were formed in 1983 with three pipers and one drummer. By 1986 the band had grown to eight pipers and four drummers. Those early band members’ occupations included a telephone engineer, a railroad pricing specialist, a paving contractor, two college professors, an electronics-steel engineer, a church minister of music, a college student, two high school students a television news anchor, and a retired physician. That retired Roanoke physician, Dr. John L. Harris, Jr., has been given a great deal of credit for organizing the band, and served as the band’s first pipe major. Myron C. White, Jr., also of Roanoke, was the band’s first drum sergeant, and Kenneth Swisher the first pipe sergeant.

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