In April of 2004, the members of the Haddon Heights Historical Society were finally treated to a lecture by Dr. Jerry Rife, Professor of Music at Rider University. His speech, entitled "If You Knew Sousa," (named after the PBS documentary with which he was heavily involved) was originally scheduled for the July 2003 meeting. However, with Spring finally breaking and the fourth of July less than three months away, he was giving his presentation to a packed room.

Dr. Rife put John Philip Sousa into perspective, describing him not only as a brilliant and timely march composer but also as a patriot, a celebrity, a performer, and a splendid marketer. He spoke about how Sousa not only helped to reflect America's changing role in the world as it entered the twentieth century but also how the composer had exposed the American public to the music of centuries past.

The July 4, 1898 edition of the musical journal The Courier said that Sousa was nothing less than "omnipresent," and one of the places he often visited was Willow Grove Park in Pennsylvania, now the site of Willow Grove Mall. For the finale of his presentation, Dr. Rife took his audience on a trip through a typical Sousa concert in Willow Grove, using vivid descriptions that transported the audience's senses to that time eighty years past.

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