HiLine Living: Band camp

The annual Havre High School band camp prepares students for the upcoming season of shows and performances.

The band camp is almost a week's worth of a full-time job for the students. They go to the high school from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day except for Friday, when they get a half day's rest.

David Johnke, the high school band director, organizes the event every year to get the students back up to par for the school year.

"It is a pretty intense week," Johnke said. "Especially for the kids. This is the week that we get together for the first time all summer and begin learning our drill for the marching band, learning our drill for the field show."

The kids play one field show and several performances throughout the school year. Tuesday, they were working on an instrumental band version of "YMCA," walking out the beginnings of the choreography and fine-tuning the piece.

Many of the students have not been practicing for the summer and band camp is a way to get them all back on track and get them solidified as a team for the school year, Johnke said.

"The cool thing is, through a lot of fundraising through the summertime, I hire four instructors and we've done that now for the past 10 years," Johnke said.

The instructors are a crew, based out of Colorado, who have been coming up to help the Havre musicians for years.

"These guys are awesome," Johnke said. "It's like running a football team. You have to have a coach for every aspect."

The four help each other out in all aspects of teaching the piece, but they have their specialties.

Matt Sanchez' specialty is brass instruments and the visual aspect of the piece. He has been to Havre twice to help out.

"We're all a crew that works with various marching bands in Colorado," Sanchez said, adding that the other three have drum corps experience. He has done camps in California, Illinois and Colorado, where he works for a marching band full time.

Joe Halls is the woodwinds instructor and is the head of the crew

'Every year, David Johnke brings us up and loves it," Halls said. "He enjoys us kicking their butts for a week and then he gets to reap the benefits."

Sanchez said the dynamic of the students coming to the camp, especially the freshmen, changes throughout the week.

"The freshmen come in a little wide-eyed," Sanchez said. "Honestly, the upperclassmen in this group have insane camaraderie and know it. The freshmen are always kind of outsiders."

"By the end of the week - it's really interesting - so, they're kind of just there," Halls said. "But the shared struggle, the diversity, the getting through these four-and-a-half days with everyone in the same boat, by the end of the week, there's this bond between them."

Johnke said the students do a great job in the camp.

A typical day at the camp starts with marching technique, where they get out on the field and practice. After the marching fundamentals in the morning, they have lunch and go inside for music rehearsal, where they break off into sections based on the instruments they play and practice just with those groups. Around that time, they will split into smaller groups to work on a more individualized basis with the instructors. After that, it's back onto the field to put it all together under the careful watch of the instructors.

"The kids really get it going," Johnke said. "It's really fantastic. It's their thing. They enjoy it and they want to do it year after year."

He said, for some of the kids, the camp isn't their favorite part, but for many, it's the one part of the program they enjoy all year long while they're in band.