It’s minutes before kickoff and the crowd at Ross-Ade Stadium has fallen to a whisper. Thousands of fans are on their feet with their heads angled upward, hearts swelling with pride, tears pooling in the corners of their eyes. A rich baritone voice fills the air, the solemnity of the words echoing out across campus. “Speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully.” Fifty thousand voices join in unison: “I am an American.”
Roy Johnson (AAE’60, MS E’62), the Voice of the “All-American” Marching Band, estimates he’s read “I am an American” around 350 times over the past 43 years, but the words have never become rote. Somehow, Johnson manages to invoke new meaning with each heartfelt rendition.
“Each time I read those words, I try to make it different than the time before,” says Johnson. “Emphasizing different aspects, a word here or there, it keeps people thinking about the meaning behind those words.”
That kind of ardent sincerity can’t be faked. Which is why Boilermaker fans are struggling to imagine game day without Johnson, who has announced his retirement effective at the end of the 2015–16 school year.
Johnson’s affiliation with Purdue Bands began in the fall of 1956 when he enrolled as a freshman. That first year, he was a member of the Big Bass Drum crew. He later marched in the block band playing clarinet. By his senior year, Johnson had begun assisting with drill procedures.
As a graduate student, he maintained involvement with the marching band, designing shows and announcing indoor concerts. He joined the band staff as a full-time assistant director in 1966, conducting concert groups, the military band, and the basketball pep band.
In 1970, he accepted a position in the Office of the Registrar, supervising academic records, serving as vice chair of the commencement committee, and moving on to become the public orator for commencements. When the position as announcer for the All-American Marching Band opened up in 1973, Al Wright asked Johnson if he’d be willing to take it on. “At the time, I had no sense that it would be the longest job I ever had,” he says.
Over the past four decades, he’s traveled with the band across the country to seven bowl games and overseas for several trips, where he picked up his share of crazy travel stories — “some that we can’t repeat!” When pressed to choose a favorite trip, Johnson says the early trips to South America were special. “Watching the local people and seeing their emotional reaction to the band’s performances — it gave me a lump in my throat to see them respond to our Purdue students,” he says.
It’s the same at Ross-Ade, too. “I know how hard the staff and students in the band work to put on an entertaining and high-quality halftime show,” says Johnson. “So when I hear a response from the crowd, that is very rewarding.”
His birds-eye view of the field may be the best seat in the house for a former drill writer to watch the band’s complex marching patterns unfold, but the auditory experience is lackluster. “The press box is an enclosed room, so I never hear my voice the way the audience hears it,” says Johnson. “It’s a subdued environment. You’re isolated from the action. Because of the presence of the media, you have to be quiet and you can’t cheer. Occasionally, when Purdue has a great play, some of us will tap on the countertop lightly, but that’s as rowdy as it gets.”
Although he’s looking forward to slowing down a bit on Fridays and Saturdays in retirement — “I hope to be able to tailgate before a game sometime. I never get to do that!” — Johnson admits that the first time he hears a new Voice ring out over Ross-Ade, he’ll be feeling a twinge of nostalgia. “I envy whoever is going to take it over for me,” he says.
He still intends to attend all the home games — Johnson has only missed two over the past 60 years. He’ll just be viewing the action from a different seat. Next season, Johnson will join his wife, Sarah (HHS’69), in the stands, where he can cheer to his heart’s content, where he will no longer be the Voice, but a voice, joined with thousands of others.
This story appeared in the Nov/Dec 2015 issue of Purdue Alumnus magazine.
Banner photo by Scott Sermersheim.
