BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Dozens of trumpeters lined streets on the city's North Side on Memorial Day to fill the air with a version of taps that lasted more than 20 minutes.
Alana Rader has kicked off Taps Over Bethlehem’s annual tradition since 2014, hitting the first note of the funeral call at Nisky Hill Cemetery at the stroke of 8 a.m. As soon as Rader finished Monday morning, another trumpeter just outside the cemetery started to play.
- Taps is traditionally sounded at military funerals
- In its 10th year, Taps Over Bethlehem brings dozens of trumpeters together in a solemn, three-mile-long chain
- The late Dan Deysher helped launch the event in 2014 and was honored Monday
The chain of taps-playing trumpeters stretched more than three miles Monday from Nisky Hill Cemetery to Memorial Park Cemetery, marking the event’s 10th year.
'His life's mission'
Rader’s grandfather, Dan Deysher, helped launch Taps Over Bethlehem in 2014. Deysher went to the Navy School of Music in the 1940s before serving on the USS Pennsylvania in the South Pacific Ocean during World War II, she said.
Taps is a bugle call that is heard during patriotic memorial services and has been used at U.S. military funerals for more than a century.
Rader estimated her grandfather “sounded taps almost 4,000 times” in his life before he died in February 2018.
“It became kind of his life's mission and life's work, I think because he saw so many guys perish during the war who didn't receive proper military funerals.”Alana Rader, granddaughter of Dan Deysher
“It became kind of his life's mission and life's work, I think because he saw so many guys perish during the war who didn't receive proper military funerals,” she said.
The Taps Over Bethlehem event pays tribute to the hundreds of Lehigh Valley residents who sacrificed their lives while serving in the U.S. military, as well as veterans who died after their service ended.
For the first four years, Rader started the event at Nisky Hill Cemetery and Deysher played the final rendition in the chain at Memorial Park Cemetery.
But since 2018, Taps Over Bethlehem trumpeters have been playing for Deysher, too. He was laid to rest in Memorial Park Cemetery, where the funeral call sounded a dozen times Monday morning before a short ceremony.
“We … do this to honor the veterans and also to honor his memory and his legacy,” Rader said, calling her grandfather “a really special person.”
Rader now plays the same trumpet Deysher used while aboard the USS Pennsylvania to start the event that creates a solemn air over Bethlehem each Memorial Day morning.
“It's incredibly emotional; I always get choked up when I sound taps,’” Rader said, shortly after finishing her opening rendition.
Trumpeters of all ages
Mitch Huston runs the logistics of Taps Over Bethlehem, working for several months each year to plan and execute the event. He said he got involved because his dad, Ray, was best friends with Deysher.
Huston said he sent some emails in 2014 to friends, high schools and community bands looking for players and more than 30 volunteered for the inaugural Taps Over Bethlehem.
He said he asks about 100 people each year to help create the three-mile chain from Nisky Hill Cemetery to Memorial Park Cemetery. This year’s event had 46 trumpeters, ranging in age from 11 to 76, Huston said.
After spending Sunday marking out where trumpeters should stand along the route, Huston dropped them off Monday at their spots. He then called Rader just before 8 a.m. to make sure the funeral call sounded exactly at 8 a.m.
By 9 a.m., more than 100 people were gathered at Memorial Park Cemetery, where the group of trumpeters played several songs. Rader also sang a poignant rendition of taps before the city of Bethlehem held its Memorial Day service at the cemetery.
