Cache Is Not At The Posted Coordinates
Mr. Toot is the mascot not only of the North Iowa Band Festival, but also for Mason City as a whole. His image has appeared on everything from T-Shirts to business cards to city light poles. Now his image also appears on the geocaching map just south of Mason City Iowa. Each of these puzzles will include a fact or story in theme with the art series. Some may also include a question or two for you to answer correctly to find the coordinates.
Meredith Wilson
The "Iowa Fight Song" is one of three fight songs currently used by the University of Iowa Hawkeye Marching Band along with On Iowa and Roll Along Iowa. The music and lyrics were written by Iowa native Meredith Willson, author of The Music Man, in 1951. The song is mostly a contrafact to his hit, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," much in the same way that "76 Trombones" and "Goodnight, My Someone" from The Music Man are based on the same harmonic structure. As part of Willson's library, the song is copyrighted to Frank Music Corp. and Meredith Willson Music, subsidiaries of Sir Paul McCartney’s MPL Communications.
Trivia:
The song was used in a 2007 commercial for the Iowa Lottery, where a Hawkeye fan sings different words to it for an instant ticket game. Meredith Willson's widow, Rosemary, protested the song's use in a lottery commercial, while university faculty members urged the athletic department to distance itself from the state lottery, fearing it would promote gambling. The ad was pulled soon after.
This photo shows Meredith Willson conducting the University of Iowa Band. I do not know when this is from. If anyone can help me out with information on this it would be appreciated.
If you fast forward to about the 9:50 mark of this video, at that point is the halftime show of Iowa vs Notre Dame from Nov 22, 1958 and is a wonderful tribute to Meredith Willson and is well worth watching.
Incedentally, Iowa beat Notre Dame 31-21 and their next game was against California at the Rose Bowl where Iowa won 38-12.