The Buckeye Travelers Band Celebrates 44 Years of Music!
The Buckeye Travelers will celebrate and host a free square dance, anniversary party at the Noble Co Community Center on Saturday, April 6 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Social Time starting at 6 p.m. So come out and enjoy some music and maybe even brush off your square-dancing skills or learn if you don’t know how to dance, while the Buckeye Travelers continue 44 years and counting, as long as the good Lord sees fit for them to do so.
It all started in the late 1970’s, when a local family started gathering their kids together in the evenings and playing guitars in the living room of their home. With the love of music passed down from the family father, Floyd Burton, to his daughter, Donna Mackie, and on down to Donna and her husband Scott’s children, there was music in the blood. Many spring and summer weekends saw an impromptu concert or practice session on the Mackie’s front porch; a family just doing their thing carrying on the tradition of the country music that their ancestors shared. And the neighbors weren’t complaining about the free concerts!
Occasionally a few neighbors or classmates would join in on these front porch sessions, and sometimes, other music lovers and instrument players from around Washington and Noble counties would find their way into the mix.
In 1980 this was such a regular event that the family band was asked to start playing for church outings, fire departments, and square dances, and the Buckeye Travelers Band was officially born. Founding members of the group included Donna Mackie, acoustic guitar and “Grammy/pseudo Mom” to all; Frank Mackie, lead guitar; Joletta Mackie-Palagyi on bass guitar; Rick Keylor on drums; Gary and Barb Feldner of Caldwell, the Mackie girls, Misty Mackie-McConnell, Mandy Mackie-Miller, Mindy Mackie-Brooker, Mitzi Mackie-Schaad; and Scott Mackie as Manager and Square Dance caller. Most weekends from that point on you could find them out about in the local communities playing weddings, fairs, festivals, church and 4-H events. There was hardly a free weekend for the band as time went on and their popularity grew. They eventually also traveled out of state as well as regionally. Over the past 40-plus years, the band has opened for Reba McIntire, Justin Tubb, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells, Mel McDaniel, Dan Seals, Connie Smith, Lorrie Morgan, Boxcar Willie and other Nashville stars while still returning home to do the local events in the communities in which they lived. Some members of the group have changed through the years and not all were initially family, but once a member was brought into the fold, they remained just like family even after they moved on to do other things. Other members who have played with the Buckeye Travelers Band in the past included Rob Snodgrass, Drew Palagyi, Scottie Palagyi, Molly Moore, Jimmy Bauman, Ron Seebaugh, and Mark Hutchinson. Each has moved on to be parts of various bands around the Mid-Ohio Valley. Now you can find the Buckeye Travelers still doing square dances, weddings, church and community events; just not as many as in days gone by.
The kids have grown up and have their own kids who are have families that are now also involved in the Buckeye Travelers Band to this day! The Band now consists of Donna, Frank, Frank’s daughter Brittany, (a BMI songwriter and Independent Singer/Recording artist) on keyboard and her husband Steven, (an ASCAP writer, minored in music at The Ohio State University) on drums. Mandy’s Daughter Katelyn Poulton is on bass, and Misty, Mandy, Mindy, Mitzi, Misty’s daughters Sammi McConnell and Ellie Heiss are involved. It’s been an interesting journey over the years for this local band to have done the things they have been fortunate to have been a part of, including recording five albums along the way, and now getting to see their kids and grandkids becoming involved in the life of being a square dance band, learning to dance themselves by the age of five and teaching others the tradition still today.
