UTA’s Junior ROTC Field Day 1981-84

Each year, we ran a Junior ROTC Field Day. This was a major undertaking for the corps of cadets and the cadre. We had JROTC programs from all over the State come and participate and we had to arrange for billeting and meals for them. We generally had somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 cadets participate.I don’t remember which year it was, but one year we had over 2,500 participants. We made the local TV news and all newspapers with that one.

Events included Drill and Ceremonies, Drill Teams, map reading, engineering challenge course (similar to a confidence course), and a few others that I don’t remember. Total point scores for each event were kept and first, second and third place trophies were given.

We also had a rotating trophy (that I made) that was presented to the overall champion school that rotated each year to the winning school. It had previous year’s winner plaques on the sides of the trophy. I overdid it as this trophy was nearly 6 feet tall.

Info from LTC (Ret) Ron Munden, Commandant of Cadets, 1981-84