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After COVID-19 canceled Memorial Day ceremonies, buglers plan Taps Across America

Wichita Eagle - 5/25/2020

May 25--When Patricia Konyha was 14, she attended a military-honors funeral where her father, an Air Force veteran, was serving as part of an honor guard team firing a three-volley salute.

When taps was sounded towards the conclusion of the graveside service, no bugle player was available, so the iconic song was played on a cassette tape. As the song's 24 notes played on, the sound began to warble. And then it stopped suddenly.

Konyha, a saxophonist in her middle school band at the time, felt terrible for the family.

A few months later, with a $25 garage sale trumpet in her hand, Konyha was learning taps.

By the time she was 16, she was volunteering to play at funerals.

On this Memorial Day, with traditional events canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Konyha, now 44, has found a way to honor America's war heroes and veterans while still maintaining social distancing guidelines. She's helped to organized more than 2,500 trumpet and bugle players from across the country to play taps.

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"Taps across America" will take place at 3 p.m. local time on Monday.

"Myself and Jari Villanueva from Baltimore, Maryland, got together and said 'Hey, why don't we get as many buglers as we can to go out on their front porch, or their backyard, or play at a local cemetery by themselves,'" Konyha said. "And just play taps for Memorial Day since nobody else is having any ceremonies."

You can join the event, by signing up at https://www.tapsforveterans.org/national-moment-of-remembrance/

Konyha is no stranger to the idea of calling on buglers and trumpeters to play taps together for a cause.

When Arizona senator and war hero John McCain died in 2018, Konyha created a Facebook page called Taps Across the Nation. It was a call-to-arms for buglers to honor McCain's service to the nation by sounding taps in his honor.

To Konyha's surprise and delight, 257 buglers and trumpeters answered the call, and on Sept. 2, 2018, while McCain was being laid to rest at the United States Navel Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, taps was sounded in unison at 257 points across the country.

That event, and Konyha's Facebook page, put her in contact with Jari Villanueva. Villanueva has his own Facebook page, "Taps for Veterans," as a resource to find buglers for funerals and prevent the very scenario that Konyha witnessed when she was 14.

Villanueva played trumpet in the U.S. Air Force Band In Washington, D.C., for 23 years and has played at more than 5,000 events at the Arlington National Cemetery. He is considered one of the country's foremost experts on the history of taps and the bugle.

Villanueva was responsible for moving the bugle used at John F. Kennedy's funeral from the Smithsonian Institution to its current, and permanent, display at Arlington. He was inducted into the Buglers Hall of Fame in 2007.

He said that taps has really transcended the military and has become a part of all of our culture.

"It's a call that gives people a sense of relief, a sense of calm, a sense of peace," Villanueva said. "And that's important now."

Konyha will step out on the porch of her south Wichita home at 3 p.m. on Monday because she says her neighbors are expecting her to be there. The trumpet she now plays is about $3,000 nicer than the $25 one she found at a garage sale in 1989. She'll be joined by buglers and trumpeters from every single state and even some in Europe and Australia.

She'll bring the mouthpiece to her lips and play a little harder and a little louder than she does at a funeral.

"Let everybody hear it," she said.

"I want as many people to hear me as possible."

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(c)2020 The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.)

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