All is Well, Safely Rest, God is Nigh
Gettysburg, PA - On June 26, 2018, Jim Steele (Beta Chi/Allegheny 1981) sounded Taps at 7:00 p.m. as part of the One Hundred Nights of Taps Gettysburg 2018 at the Soldiers Monument in Gettysburg National Cemetery. 100 NIGHTS OF TAPS GETTYSBURG 2018 is sponsored by The Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania, The National Park Service, and Taps for Veterans.
Jim serves as Bugler and has sounded Taps at numerous funerals, memorials, and special occasions with the American Legion Lakeshore Post 137 Honor Guard, Sons of the American Legion Detachment of Florida Squadron 137, Bugles Across America, and Honor Guards of America. He also serves as Director of the American Legion Riders Florida Chapter 137, Vice Commander of Sons of the American Legion (SAL) Florida Squadron 137, and Assistant Scout Master for Troop 522 of North Florida Council BSA, where he is avidly recruiting young up-and-coming buglers. Jim also volunteers with the Missing in America Project and Wreaths Across America.
The son of a career Navy man, Jim was born in Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1959 and began bugling in 1969 at the age of 10, when his grandfather passed down a family heirloom, an E-flat British Calvary trumpet. The following year, Jim took up the trumpet in 7th grade as a military brat living in Morocco. He continued with the trumpet and the baritone horn through high school in Naples, Italy and Williamsport, PA, playing in the concert, marching, pep, and jazz bands. Jim is a 1981 graduate of Allegheny College (Meadville, PA.), where he continued with the trumpet and baritone horn in the Allegheny Wind Symphony under the direction and instruction of Lowell Hepler.
Jim currently resides in Jacksonville, FL and is employed as Education Manager with the University of Florida Jacksonville Physicians. Jim is an avid collector of horns, with an extensive collection of trumpets, fluegel horns, bugles, and field trumpets in all shapes, sizes, and ages. Jim’s mission in sounding Taps is simple: Honor those who have Served.