Mount Union borough

The Music Supervisor of Mount Union

Mount Union had a new band in 1930. McElroy's Family Memories, a county book of that year, says it was called the Mount Union Band, was organized on March 4, 1930, and had forty pieces.

Four years later J. Richard Burkholder came to town. His obituary in the Chambersburg Public Opinion says he began teaching in Mount Union right after finishing at Penn State in 1934 and retired in 1974.

He was born June 7, 1912, in the Shippensburg and Chambersburg area, and the obituary says he started on trombone as a child in the New Franklin Silver Cornet Band and graduated from Chambersburg High School in 1930. The trombone went with him to college. The Penn State Collegian of October 7, 1932, named John R. Burkholder of the class of 1934 among the new trombones elected to the Blue Band.

The record then places him in Mount Union. A marriage license notice in the Democratic Watchman of August 13, 1937, lists John R. Burkholder of Mt. Union and Christine Chilcote of Burlington, New Jersey. The Juniata College Bulletin of May 1939 noted that the husband of its alumna Christine Chilcote was music supervisor of the Mount Union schools. Patterson's American Educational Directory, copyrighted in 1946, lists Richard Burkholder for music under Mount Union.

In January 1948 Mount Union High School hosted the Central District Band at its tenth festival, held January 15 to 17. The Pennsylvania School Journal reported that 45 schools were represented and that Frank Simon was guest conductor. Burkholder and a vocal music instructor credited the cooperation of many civic organizations, and the Rotary Club supplied programs that listed the players and added facts about Mount Union and its industries.

His obituary credits him with beginning the annual Huntingdon County Band in 1938, the orchestra in 1939 and the chorus in 1940. It says he was a guest conductor and host for band festivals around the state and worked with the community bands of Mapleton and Mount Union. Mapleton's 1966 centennial book names him among that band's directors from 1950 on.

The same obituary says he organized and directed The Big Band Sound in 1972, led the choir and orchestra at St. Luke Lutheran Church for many years, and owned Burkholder Music Service, which supplied instruments, repairs, music and lessons. In his free time he flew planes and built and flew remote control ones.

He died at his home in Mount Union on September 26, 2007, at 95, and is buried in Mount Union Cemetery.

Checked against the record. We read the 1932, 1937, 1946 and 1948 records and the 1930 book on the scanned pages. Those records were printed at the time, and they place him in those years. The 1932 and 1937 papers call him John R. Burkholder. His Find a Grave memorial names him John Richard Burkholder, and his obituary gives the Blue Band, the trombone and a 1937 marriage to Christine Chilcote, so we take them for one man. His 1934 start, his 1974 retirement, the county band, orchestra and chorus dates and his later work rest on the obituary alone, which we read as transcribed on Find a Grave and not in the printed paper. That is why the story says whose word they are. The obituary also says he received bachelor's and master's degrees and graduated in 1934. We have seen no Penn State record, so the story says only that he finished there in 1934. Still open: The Daily News of Huntingdon for February 19, 1943, page 12, and the Altoona Mirror for August 14, 1946, page 12, may say more about his flying and about the band that summer. Both sit with a subscription service we could not open, so nothing here comes from them, and this story says nothing about band uniforms or parades in 1946.

Sources

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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