Dave Owens began his marching career with the Cavaliers of Rosemont, Illinois. In 1977 Dave decided to move to Santa Clara to march in the Santa Clara Vanguard A Corps, where he marched for the next 2 years, playing lead soprano.
In the fall of 1978 Dave started writing drill for the highly successful Sunnyvale High School Marching Band, where he was also tapped to help instruct the Sunnyvale Royal Sabre High School WinterGuard. He, along with the rest of the winter guard staff, was instrumental in bringing the Royal Sabre WinterGuard into the national spotlight. and winning the California Color Guard Circuit championships, as well as the Western Regional Championships in 1982..
After aging out in 1979, Dave began assisting with drill writing, interning alongside Pete Emmons, and then took over the drill writing responsibilities when Pete left the corps after 1980. Dave remained involved with drill writing throughout the 80’s and was responsible for the tunnel pants changes of 1985 and 1986, as well as the many “magic tricks” performed by the corps during the latter half of the 80’s.
In 1986 Dave was tapped by the group “Up With People” to help with their halftime performance at Super Bowl XX. Dave went on to travel throughout the world through his successful career in modeling and ended up in Australia, where he worked at the famous Sydney Opera House.
Dave was always a forward thinking individual and was instrumental in starting the corps along its path in movement, other than marching. He created the fast moving “low walk,” which was one of the corps’ signature moves during his years.