Every community needs celebrations to pull us away from our computers and TVs and meet each other doing something together. The key word here is together! Being together as a community, watching, listening, dancing, playing, laughing and crying—it’s what keeps us together in this place called Waseca County. For many this is truly their birthplace. It’s my adopted hometown. That counts. So when there are celebrations, come out and participate. Maybe we can’t get to every one of them, but let’s try! The Leroy Shield Hometown Tribute’s Saturday Night Dance is this weekend on October 3.

So who is Leroy Shield and why is he significant to Waseca, Minnesota?

Leroy Shield was born in Waseca, Minnesota on October 2, 1893 and grew up to become a composer and conductor for Hollywood's popular Laurel & Hardy films and the Our Gang/Little Rascals films of the 1920s/30s. His music has become synonymous with these ageless favorites! Those films were created at the Hal Roach Studios. Movie-making was such a new medium, there weren’t any rules or copyright laws yet in those early years. In fact Shield wrote most of the music for the Hal Roach movies, receiving onscreen credit in only two of the dozens of films. Roach continued to use Shield’s music without the permission and use agreements required today.



Bernard Shield, who worked for the railroad, moved the family from Waseca when Leroy was a child. Eventually, though, Leroy Shield's talents took him to Chicago where he became the Musical Director of the National Broadcasting Company in 1931. There he composed and arranged symphonic music for radio dramas with millions of listeners. He was recognized in Who’s Who in Music in 1941; and received his Honorary Doctorate from the Chicago Musical College in 1942. In 1945 Shield became conductor for the NBC Orchestra in New York, working and touring with the renowned Arturo Toscanini. Leroy Shield retired in 1955 and died in 1962. His importance as a composer has rarely been recognized, but he was a major American composer.