By Ron Schulz, President
Phantom Regiment Alumni Association

Chuck Lignell, who was a fixture around Phantom Regiment during the 1970s, passed away March 3.

His involvement began when his daughter, Debbie, joined Phantom Regiment Cadets. Chuck quickly became part of the organization s management, including as predident of the Phantom Regiment Booster Club. He also served a half-dozen years on Phantom Regiment s Board of Directors. He spent most of the years on the Board serving as the treasurer.

While he did a lot for the corps behind the scenes, most of the members and instructional staff will best remember Chuck as equipment manager for the Regiment. In those days the official title for that position was Quartermaster. If you had anything on the equipment truck, you needed to deal with Chuck. As the Regiment began to tour more, Chuck often drove the equipment truck (his C.B. radio handle was Charlie Tuna ) in addition to getting the truck loaded and fixing vehicles as well as fixing horns and drums. He often was accompanied in equipment truck be the other half of the equipment truck team, Jerry Fewell, who died in June 2005.

Chuck was a big guy who could be ornery one moment and then be just as funny and kind the next. The sound of his voice is immortalized in some sound movie footage that I shot of the Regiment in 1976, as Chuck is trying to encourage the members to load the busses at the old Bus Barn Hall on Auburn Street.

Bob Stolberg, another former PR director and board member in the 1970s, remembered how Chuck loved to locate delis during the East Coast tour that would make submarine sandwiches with peanut butter.

One thing is certain, Chuck loved Phantom Regiment. At the funeral visitation for Chuck, his son, Dan, said that his father continued to visit Regiment s Web site every summer to follow the corps season, Ron said.

Phantom Regiment Alumni Association board member Kathy (Jones) Wight said in a note that Chuck was a super volunteer a little gruff to some, but he had a heart as big as Texas.
Chuck is survived by wife Diane, daughter Debbie (Bruce) Griffin and sons Daniel and David.