Frank Speziale photo

NORWICH – Each year at the New York State Field Band Conference Championships, two people are inducted into the conference’s Hall of Fame. This Sunday at the Syracuse Carrier Dome, one of the inductees will be retired Norwich Field Band Director Don Burke.

From 1981 to 2007, Burke directed the Norwich Field Band, during which his band won three back-to-back NYSFBC titles in 2002, 2003, and 2004, as well as countless Best of Class awards at the Sherburne Pageant of Bands. He currently resides in Sherburne.

New York State Field Band Historian Jon Armstrong noted very few bands in conference history have ever won three consecutive titles and said, “Evidence of [Burke’s] impact on the Norwich music program and students is very apparent. When it went up on Facebook about a month ago that Don was going to become part of the NYSFBC Hall of Fame, there were several hundred congratulatory messages sent to him by former students both near and far.”