When Ray Scott came to Mary Washington College in 1984 to teach analytical chemistry, his baggage included nearly two decades of playing the bagpipes.
Eight years later, Scott was a department head and a full professor. He also was a piper with the highly rated City of Washington Pipe Band, which was soon to compete at the World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. To help them pay their way, Scott asked if the college would hire the band for $1,000 to play at the 1993 commencement.
The school agreed.
"It was a spectacular success," Scott said. "For the next three years we kept inviting them back."
As 1997’s graduation approached, the date conflicted with the East Coast Piping Championships.
Scott suggested forming a band of his own.
"I have three piping students," he told the administration "We could make a noise."
Somewhat dubiously, they gave Scott the go-ahead. The small group was a smash hit. Afterward, then-president William Anderson "asked me to form a pipe band for the school."
By the next commencement the band had 12 members. By the following year, that number had doubled. Anderson proposed that the school officially "adopt" the group.
Now Scott, 53, approaches a quarter century at Mary Washington as the founder, pipe major and director of the University of Mary Washington Eagle Pipe Band. The UMW pipe band is 26 strong this year, with 12 pipers, eight drummers and half a dozen dancers.
It has had its ups and downs, since it draws its members from a constantly evolving school population and a highly mobile community.
"One year we had 45 members," Scott said. "But then, the next year we had 22."
The present makeup includes 11 UMW students, 12 members of the Fredericksburg community (including two Navy veterans, two Marine vets, an Air Force vet and one active Army), plus two high school students: a senior from Fredericksburg Christian Schools and one from Richmond.
Last June, UMW competed in the Ohio Scottish Games and was first among 10. Last fall, the band won its grade at the Richmond Highland Games. Since it began competing in 1999, the UMW band has won its grade at the Virginia Scottish Games and been in the top four at half a dozen others.
This fall, the Eagle band will play on Sept. 13 at the Virginia Games in Delaplane, on Oct. 3 in Williamsburg, on Oct. 11 in southern Maryland and on Oct. 25 at the Richmond Games.
Ray was born in Wenham, Mass., to a father who was an ophthalmologist and a mother who raised nine children. When he was 10, four of Ray’s six sisters took up highland dancing.
"They needed an accompanist," Scott recalled. "I was it."
Scott studied under a number of local bagpipe teachers and joined the community pipe band in Bedford, Mass. He attended Hartwick College at Oneonta, N.Y., where he met his wife-to-be, Priscilla. There were bagpipes at their 1978 wedding. Priscilla is a tenor drum player (the ones who twirl the "lollipop" sticks between drumbeats) in the UMW band.
Scott did his graduate work in chemistry at the University of Cincinnati. He also did an internship with IBM in Atlanta, Ga., where he was offered a full-time job.
"But I decided I wanted to teach chemistry in a small college, where I wouldn’t get involved in any big research projects," he said. "I drew up a list of about 10 schools and traveled around. On my first visit to Virginia, I said this is it. And here I am."
TARTAN (tart’-n). 1) woolen cloth with a pattern of straight lines of different colors and widths crossing at right angles, esp. as worn in the Scottish Highlands, where each clan has its own pattern. 2) a garment made of tartan.
The colors of the University of Mary Washington are blue, gray and white "with a little red," said Ray Scott, founder of the university’s Eagle Pipe Band. When the band was formed in 1997, the immediate search was for kilts, the heart of a piper’s uniform.
A kilt, a pleated skirt requiring some 30 square yards of cloth, can be made of anything: denim, leather, even silk. But pipers’ kilts are tartans, that uniquely represent the place, organization or family clan they are from. UMW had to start from scratch.
"We wrote to Geoffrey Tailor, the biggest kiltmaker and weaver in Edinburgh, and told them our colors," Scott recalled. "They sent back three suggested designs. We discussed it back and forth, narrowing this line, changing that blue, tweaking the red. There were five different shades of white to choose from."
The result is the "Mary Washington College Tartan."
"Geoffrey Tailor ran off 20 kilts and also supplied the accoutrements," Scott said, including Balmoral hats, sporrans (the carry-all bag hanging at the waist front), long socks, and flashes (the red garters for the socks). The band made its debut in its new attire in October 1998 at the Richmond Scottish Games.
By contract, Mary Washington is the only place in the world that can buy the MWC Tartan cloth from Geoffrey Tailor.
"I have a bolt of the tartan and an inventory of various-size kilts stored up in my attic," Scott said. "The last time we bought 75 yards of the cloth [45 inches wide] it cost $2,500."