In the corps' early years, the Phantomettes and a corps-sponsored all-boy color guard called the Raiders were competitively successful. The drum and bugle corps, however, struggled. In 1962, the corps bought a set of high quality bugles that had belonged to the Commonwealth Edison Knights of Light Drum and Bugle Corps which had folded two years earlier. With the new instruments and a new brass arranger, the corps began to improve. The old set of bugles went to the newly formed Phantom Regiment Cadets.