At Strath Haven, everybody's with the band

In the last week of summer vacation, when other kids are at the beach or hanging with friends, Strath Haven High School's marching band - all 423 members - is tootling trumpets, saxophones, piccolos and other instruments, and going through military-style drills.

Only a few collide, and just one, a drummer, falls over backward.

"Look at your spacing. This is challenging. Let's do it again. Come on now. You're doing great," band director Jack Hontz shouts, pacing amid row upon row . . . upon row . . . of students attending band camp this week to prepare for the Wallingford school's first football game of the season tonight.

If most school bands are the size of a nimble trumpet, Strath Haven is a big-mouthed tuba. It's the largest in the state, according to one school band association. It's bigger even than Penn State's legendary Marching Blue Band, which has 309 members.

"That's one school? That's absolutely huge," said Tom Snyder, president of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Marching Band Association. He said he'd never heard of a high school band that size.

In artsy, well-to-do Strath Haven, which offers such quirky extracurriculars as the Neglected Cinema Club, being in the band conveys as much social status as having huge numbers of people on your friends' list.

"It's weird if you aren't in band," said Grace Lee, 17, one of five drum majors.

That's because a third of the student body is in the group, evidence of not only its coolness quotient but also the band's emphasis on inclusiveness rather than perfecting complex drills and music.

"It's the culture here. It's very much accepted," said Hontz, who is in his 27th year as director and has the bearish physique of a linebacker instead of the clarinetist that he is.

When the band, in black-and-white uniforms, marches in for halftime performances, it is so big the musicians barely fit on the football field. Twelve buses are needed to get everyone to an away game.

"It's almost like an army," said Beth Kalemkarian, who coordinates the roughly 100 band parents who keep the program running. "It's an amazing thing to see."

Persuading kids to give up summer vacation and Friday nights in the fall without giving them a helmet and shoulder pads isn't hard when most of their friends are there, too.

"You're with a third of the school, so you're definitely in-the-know," said drum major Kevin Selaus, 18, who this year will throw a flaming baton, a scorchingly popular tradition, at homecoming. "It's the most fun you can have on a Friday night."

In this alternate teen universe, even football players want to be in the band. Last year, a member of the varsity squad played saxophone in his football uniform during halftime. This year, a junior varsity right guard/linebacker also plays trumpet.

"We're the 12th member of the football team," said Jared Manny, 15, noting that all band members wear T-shirts with the number 12 under their uniforms.

And after every game, football players doff their helmets in a salute to the group.

The band has come a long way since its start in 1984, when Nether Providence and Swarthmore High Schools merged into Strath Haven and Hontz had to go door to door to recruit kids for his newly formed ensemble.

"If they had ever played an instrument - or even picked one up - we took them," he said.

The community has always supported all the arts at Strath Haven, which requires four credits of arts and humanities courses instead of the state-mandated two, said principal Mary Jo Yannacone.

"If they didn't, there is no way we could do this," she said.

To show its appreciation, the band plays in several parades, including Veterans' Day, in Media. The line of flag-twirling, trumpet-popping, cymbal-clashing kids goes on for an impressive four or five blocks.

"It certainly helps to sell the stands" during football season, Yannacone said.

Such pageantry doesn't come cheap. This year's marching-band budget is $44,435 and increases about 3 percent annually. Like just about every other district in the country, Wallingford-Swarthmore has had to reduce jobs and pinch pennies to balance its budget the last two years, but superintendent Rudolf Rubeis said he would never cut arts and music spending.

"It's what makes our society a better place," he said.

The band's huge numbers owe as much to that philosophy as to creative scheduling. Band rehearsal is held for a short period after school, before sports practices begin, so students can participate in both.

Hontz also keeps the band out of pressure-cooker competitions so as many kids as want to can be involved.

Still, teaching 423 kids to play and march as a single, colossal unit is as hard as it sounds. With just two weeks of training before its first show, the group has to learn three songs and accompanying drills. As if that weren't enough, halfway through the season the band debuts a new show.

The secret is: Keep it simple.

"On the field with everyone moving, it looks more complicated than it is," said Hontz, who admits that each performance is nerve-racking. Afterward, he and his staff critique videos of the show just like football coaches.

On Monday, band members took their first tentative, clumsy steps on the field as they practiced the theme song from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. By Tuesday, "they'll forget how to march, they'll forget how to play - but they'll get it eventually," Hontz said.

For freshman Ted Bergman, 14, the hardest part was remembering to take eight steps for every five yards.

"No one ends up doing it," said the trumpeter, sitting with four other guys during a lunch break in which they ordered Domino's pizza, a band-camp tradition.

Jacob Hagle, 15 and a sophomore, told him to "follow the squad leader and turn when everyone turns, and you'll be fine."

The problem is the person next to Bergman was always a step behind and he was afraid he'd fall, which one boy did earlier in the day when he tripped over a strip of yellow marker.

Back on the field, Hontz ran the drills without music several times, making sure lines were pencil-straight.

Then it was time to strike up the entire band.

"Let's do it with the drums this time. Tubas, you're playing. Bells, you're playing. This is the big moment," he said, surveying the field like a general readying his troops. "Put it together."