Bill Moffit passed away on Wednesday in his home in Jacksonville, Florida. He was 82.

Most of you are probably thinking, "Who is Bill Moffit?" Then again, most of my regular readers have been in a marching band with me, so probably not.

Here's the bottom line: if you've ever heard a marching band perform, particularly a high school marching band, then the odds are almost 100% that you've heard a Bill Moffit arrangement. He would arrange commonly used songs like The Star Spangled Banner in such a way that they sounded good but weren't overly complicated, so a group of non-professional musicians could play them. As such, almost every high school and college did just that.

The above linked article says he arranged 450 songs for Marching Band, but I'm actually surprised it wasn't more than that, given how often I've seen his name. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that he directed the fanfare trumpets at the Olympic Games in 1984 and the Pan American Games in 1986.

Good for him. Talk about a legacy that will live on forever...
(Hat tip: Kushol Gupta)