Blue Band families value band, Penn State connections across generations

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Since 1899 the Penn State Blue Band has provided the University with a spirited soundtrack that has guided it as it marched through history toward awarding its 1 millionth degree in August 2026. For the Grahams and Frisbies, two of the Blue Band’s many multigenerational families, a member of their own family has “raised the song” dating back nearly 100 years.

For three generations, the Blue Band has been central to the Graham and Frisbie family stories. Because of the band, life-changing connections were made, and marriages, kids and grandkids followed while indelible memories and experiences were woven into the fabric of who the Grahams and the Frisbies are.

A few weeks after Penn State conferred its 1 millionth degree, the Grahams and Frisbies, reflecting on the Blue Band, Penn State, and what it means to have lineage that dates back almost 100 years, repeatedly landed on one word to describe it all — family.

The Graham Family

“To me, the Blue Band is community, friendship and identity, but most of all it’s family,” said Eleanor Savage, formerly Eleanor Graham, who played trombone in the band and graduated in 2013. “Everything you look for when you go to college, I found it in the Blue Band.”

Savage, whose husband Eric Savage also played trombone in the band, is the daughter of Greg and Talitha “Bep” Graham who met in the Blue Band in the mid-1980s. Greg graduated in 1987 and played saxophone. Talitha “Bep” Bush played cymbals and was a Blue Band manager before graduating in 1986. Greg and Bep’s second child Theodore Graham played sousaphone in the band from 2015 to 2019.

The Graham’s family history with the Blue Band began in the late 1920s when Greg Graham’s maternal grandfather Walter Eugene Eshelman played trombone under the band’s first director Wilfred Otto “Tommy” Thompson.

“My entire life, I’ve heard stories of the Blue Band and what it meant to my parents,” Savage said. “The Blue Band has allowed us to grow closer as a family, and it has given us shared experiences.”

Over the years, the Grahams have stayed engaged with the University in several ways including playing together in the Alumni Blue Band. As of now, Theodore is the most recent to play in the Blue Band, but with Eleanor and Eric’s two children growing up in a Penn State family, the next generation might be on the way.

The Frisbie Family

The Frisbie family’s Blue Band story began with Floyd Frisbie who played sousaphone and served as Blue Band president. He earned an undergraduate degree in 1960, a graduate degree in 1965 and would go on to found the marching band at Pleasant Valley High School in Brodheadsville.

In nearby Stroudsburg, Floyd and his wife Elaine Sachse Frisbie raised their two sons Dan Frisbie, who played tenor saxophone in the Blue Band and graduated from Penn State in 1988, and Michael Frisbie, who played sousaphone and graduated in 1990.

While at Penn State Dan Frisbie met Ann Spinelli who played clarinet and graduated in 1988. The two married after graduation and went on to have two sons: trumpet-player Jimmy and trombone-player Jack, who met his wife Rebekah, a mellophone player, in the band.

Jimmy and Jack Frisbie made Blue Band history by becoming the first two successive sibling drum majors when Jimmy held the coveted role in the fall of 2015 and 2016 handing the baton to Jack in the spring of 2017 who held the position through the 2019 season. For five straight falls, a Frisbie family member flipped for the Penn State faithful.

“It was a special time for our family,” Dan Frisbie said. “It made all of us, especially my dad, so proud to have that legacy in the Blue Band.”

Deep connections

The Frisbies and Grahams often tailgate together when they come back to campus for football games in the fall. The conversations pick up where they left off and there’s always plenty to reminisce about.

For the two families, the connections go beyond the Blue Band. Bep Graham was a member of Floyd Frisbie’s marching band at Pleasant Valley High School. Floyd was also then Eleanor Graham’s fourth-grade band director at Pleasant Valley Elementary School.

In the Blue Band, both families said, the ties run deep.

“The Blue Band becomes your family,” Ann Frisbie said. “And it makes you realize that being a part of the Blue Band and Penn State is being a part of something bigger than yourself.”