Electronic Engineer, President of Skillman Engineering of DeKalb, IL, he named this hot, Dixieland jazz band for the barbed wire invented in DeKalb. John has been playing with the Buck Creek Jazz Band from Virginia for 30 years in addition to being much in demand in the Chicago area.Roy is a physicist and Assistant Director at Fermilab in Batavia, IL, and has been playing jazz trombone for over fifty years, beginning in his native England, then in New York, and in the Chicago area since 1973. His rhythmic style is a tribute to his favorite trombonists, Kid Ory and Jim Robinson.Larry is a Quality Assurance Manager with Roberts Swiss, Inc., Itasca, IL. He plays both banjo and rhythm guitar and is busy as a member with the Ross Hubbel Trio and playing banjo with Mark Biegel's Dixie Dogs Jazz Band.Aaron is a 2001 NIU Music School graduate with a Masters Degree in percussion performance. He currently teaches percussion and is the Band Director at Kaneland, IL High School.Roger is part owner of Hintzsche Fertilizer Inc. He, too, is a Music School graduate from NIU. In addition to bass, he also plays excellent guitar and banjo with A Wing and a Prayer Dixie Band and numerous other big bands in the area.Diana has a marketing/sales background, but most appropriately, she has had extensive experience with Choral Music and formal voice training at IL Wesleyan U. She sings in the choir of the First United Church of DeKalb and, along with John Skillman, in the community-wide Celebration Chorale.Franz was named one of the five greatest living tenor sax players, and is unfailingly one of the liveliest players on the bandstand and playing swinging solos. His first professional gig was with stride pianist Albert Ammons in 1929 when he was 16. Now, at age 94, Franz says that his music is what sustains him. His emphasis has always been on the depth and sincere feeling of the music. He not only played with all the great jazz luminaries, such as Benny Carter, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway and James P. Johnson, but also won attention for the big band compositions and arrangements he made for those bands.