In 1983, the North American British Brass Band Association, which had formed the previous year, thanked Music Director J. Perry Watson for his influence in the British brass band movement and held its first competition at NC State. Also in the ‘80s, Ladies In Red, the all-women a capella group, was formed to give the women’s chorus the same musical education as the men had through Grains of Time. When Watson left, in 1989, Dr. Ronald J. Toering took over as Music Director.