The active population of junior corps from the U.S. and Canada who made it onto the field during the summer of 2001 has reached an all-time low of 76 corps. (This census does not include any of the fine junior corps that come to compete from countries other than the U.S. and Canada.)

The shocking thing about this year's census is that 17 out of last year's 85 total juniors failed to show up this year. That's an incredible 20 percent of the entire corps population of 2000 going inactive for 2001. If that attrition rate continues, we could very easily see fewer than 50 juniors on the field in just the next few years.

The North American juniors that went inactive (at least as a field corps) from 2000 to 2001 were:
Arcs en Ciel, QUE
Cincinnati Glory, OH
Delta Brigade, AR
East Coast Junior Jazz, MA
Emerald Knights, ONT
Imperial, QUE
Knight Storm, MA
Legend of Texas, TX
Little Americans, NY
Melomanes, QUE
Memorial Lancers, MO
Patriots Praise, CA
Spectrum, NY
Tarheel Sun, NC
Vagabonds, PA
West Coast Sound, CA
3rd Regiment, QUE

The brand new junior corps fielding (either in competition or in exhibition) for the first time in 2001 were:
Copper Star, AZ
Glory Cadets, OH (the merger of Cincinnati Glory and the already inactive since the end of 1999 Marion Cadets)
Lehigh Valley Knights, PA
Quest Explorers, NY

Several other juniors came back from being inactive. These resurrected units are:
Braves, MA
Emerald Knights, IA
Pers-Clairs, QUE
St. John's, ONT

California remains as the single largest producer of junior corps, with 10 this year. Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Ontario and Quebec follow with six each, while New York had five juniors in 2001. A total of 169 North American juniors debuted during the 1980's, but of those only three remain, East Coast Jazz (debuted in 1989), Joliet Kingsmen (debuted in 1982) and Southwind (debuted in 1981).

There are four junior corps still alive that were born in the 1930's (Americanos, Cadets, Decorah Kilties and Madison Scouts), so why in the world would there only be three corps surviving from their births in the 1980's? Here is the complete year-by-year North American junior corps census for the first 30 seasons of the DCI Era. As always, these numbers will vary from previously published accounts as new information is received.

Here are the number of junior corps in North America by year.
1972--442
1973--406
1974--389
1975--378
1976--361
1977--348
1978--294
1979--249
1980--247
1981--219
1982--205
1983--192
1984--161
1985--142
1986--122
1987--119
1988--126
1989--110
1990--108
1991--118
1992--125
1993--127
1994--121
1995--108
1996--117
1997--101
1998--92
1999--95
2000--85
2001--76

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