After the pre-Labor Day hiatus, drum corps have come out of silence to begin announcing their staff changes for the 2019 season and forward. Despite an overall highly successful season for the Blue Stars, they have announced a big shift for their percussion program that has been in place for a number of years.

Rick Barclay joins the Blue Stars staff with extensive experience in the marching arts on the West Coast. After growing the Claremont (CA) winter percussion program to a bronze medal in Scholastic World at the 2008 Winter Guard International World Championships.

Regarding drum corps, Barclay has experience teaching groups like The Academy and Blue Knights but recently has spent a majority of his time working indoors, in the WGI arena.

Barclay boasts impressive experience as the Ensemble Coordinator for Pulse Percussion, earning a WGI World Championship gold medal in 2016 and bronze in 2017. After his two very successful seasons with Pulse, he moved to join RCC Indoor as the battery caption head and earned another WGI Independent World class gold medal.