Gary Kean's blog

Back in June 2015 we lost one of our Kingsmen brothers, Chris Naughtin. Chris had a deep love for The Kingsmen and the drum corps activity. Chris attended Millikan High school in Long Beach and was part of their ROTC program where he performed with the rifle drill team. This is where he was first introduced to the drum corps activity at various local parades. Chris soon found himself in the Lakewood Diplomats. Like many others of us, Chris moved on to the Anaheim Kingsmen in 1972 and performed in a very good cymbal line to win the first DCI Championship. Chris continued to practice and he found himself in the bass drum line of the 1973 Kingsmen. We became very good friends that year and we taught the Los Caballeros youth band together. I started giving him lessons and he continued to improve as a percussionist. Chris soon found himself in The Kingsmen tympani line as part of one of the top two drum lines in 1974.

Chris was financially very solid and made several anonymous donations to the Kingsmen Alumni Corps (KAC) as well as The Kingsmen Drumline & Colorguard (Junior Corps) effort after the conclusion of the alumni corps project. I had many conversations with Chris over the years about making donations to the current organization, Kingsmen StarCorps, Inc. These always included naming the organization as a beneficiary in his trust.

Sadly after Chris passed away, I heard from one of the trust attorneys that The Kingsmen StarCorps was named in his final will. The current organization headed up by Tim Benge has received the trust donation and has since opted for an investment, and at this current time, will fund underprivileged kids scholarships in various music and visual arts programs including the drum corps activity. The future of any Kingsmen performing unit will be up to the current board of directors of the Kingsmen StarCorps.

In honor of Chris and his mother Caroline, who was a uniform volunteer in 1972, and his father Howard, these scholarships will be referred to as the "Naughtin Memorial Scholarship".

Jim Whobrey, June 2017