Continued from previous week
In 1939, the Lumberjack Band “swing band” was performing at all of the Green Bay Packers home games, as well as concert dates at the Columbus Club with 25 musicians.
And when the team stepped off the Milwaukee Road train that December, the Lumberjack Band was there along with hundreds of people crowding Washington Street from Mason to Chicago to welcome home the champions.
“Hundreds of fans who turned out yesterday had seen the Green Bay-New York game at Milwaukee with their own eyes,” the Press-Gazette stated the following day, “but their numbers made it appear that the team had returned home from a distant battle.
“At the north end of the platform, two Wisconsin Public Service busses, a pumper of fire station No. 1 and a Leicht truck containing the red-coated Packers Lumberjack Band, were drawn up in parade formation.
“The band working hard and effectively on such bits as the Packers pep song, ‘On Wisconsin’ and the new national anthem, ‘The Beer Barrel Polka,’ set the pace as the small parade moved down the street, followed by a vast and admiring throng.”
In 1940, Lumberjack Band Business Manager Wilner Burke was named band director as well — a title he held until he resigned in the early 1980s.
“Burke first played in the makeshift Lumberjack Band as far back as the early 1930s. The origin of the early ‘Jacks, as they were known, dated to 1921, the Packers’ first year in what is now the NFL,” wrote Packers Historian Cliff Christl.
“Along with directing the band, Burke also could pitch in and play the saxophone. His duties included arranging the Packers’ halftime shows. In 1966, Burke was named chairman of the National Football League’s halftime directors.
“During his 42-year association with the Packers, Burke built the Lumberjack Band into a unit which not only became synonymous with the team but gained its own fame and following through its lively performances at both games and special events.”
Burke also served on the Green Bay City Council for over two decades, as well as the Brown County board.
Burke passed away in 1985 and was posthumously inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1986.
“He was a wonderful director, very strong,” then band director, Lovell Ives, told Keith Goldschmidt shortly after Burke’s death. “He ran the band with a great deal of care. He really put himself into it.
“I don’t think he ever missed a game. He had a lot of pride in the group.”
To be continued
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