Association Leadership Spotlight: Bill Caudill, President, EUSPBA – Part 1

Bill Caudill was elected president of the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association in December 2022. Over the last year, he has settled into his role as leader of the world’s largest piping and drumming association by geography and membership.

Representing pipers and drummers from Texas to Maine, with six regional branches, the EUSPBA presidency is no easy task. As possibly the only major pipe band association to place a limit of two two-year terms on its president, a maximum of four years inevitably concentrates efforts to implement an agenda and create change.

Caudill welcomes the challenge with enthusiasm and charisma.

He brings to the role an extensive competitive piping background, having marched the boards as a Professional grade soloist and a competing band piper and pipe-major.

A native of Waxhaw, North Carolina, Bill Caudill is full of Southern grace and congeniality. In addition to his accomplishments in piping, he has many academic achievements, including a Masters in folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has delivered lectures on the history of Scottish settlements in the Southern USA for numerous academic organizations, including the University of Glasgow and a symposium on Scottish Gaelic Culture in North America sponsored by Harvard University.

Bill Caudill founded the Scottish Heritage Center and the pipe band at St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, North Carolina. He’s a member of the EUSPBA’s judges’ panel, and has served in various elected roles with the association’s Southern Branch. He was elected president of the Alliance of North American Pipe Band Associations in 2023, and has been an instructor at the North American Academy of Piping summer school founded by the late Sandy Jones for nearly 30 years.

As part of pipes|drums’ Association Leadership Spotlight series, we caught up with EUSPBA President Bill Caudill to hear about his role and vision for the association. We’ll run the conversation in two parts.

Stay tuned for the second part of our conversation with EUSPBA President Bill Caudill in our ongoing Association Leadership Spotlight series.