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While classmates are vegging out or working summer jobs, Onalaska High School Marching Band members are charging full speed ahead into a new year of music.

They got a respite the week of July 4, but this week it was back to work for the second week of their first band boot camp of the summer. The first week they spent learning a rockin’ arrangement of the 1950s Chuck Berry classic, “Johnny B. Goode,” which will be the band’s parade tune.

The song will get its first workout before an audience this weekend when the Hilltoppers travel to Monticello, Minn., for the July 13 Riverfest Parade. Band director Dawson Strutt said it’s an honor to be asked to be part of the Monticello event as only four bands get the call.

The Hilltoppers likely got on Monticello’s radar because of last summer’s participation in a 30-band competition in Alexandria, Minn., where the Hilltoppers’ performance earned a second-place in what Strutt deems Minnesota’s high school marching band Super Bowl.

Strutt expects the Hilltoppers’ version of “Johnny B. Goode” will wow crowds with its great rhythmic complexity and cool chords, not to mention the sight and sound of Ryan Burton wailing away on his white Les Paul electric guitar.

“Having a guitar on this adds a lot of interest and authenticity,” said Strutt, adding that Burton is working on some flashy guitar hero moves, maybe even his own rendition of Chuck Berry’s trademark duck walk. “We are working on his showmanship.”

This week, the band has been hard at work beginning to learn its field show as well as honing the parade tune. The field show mines the same crowd-pleasing rock music vein as the parade tune, leading off with Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” then going into the Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” (featuring Peyton Stay on electric fiddle) and the latin percussion groove of Gloria Estefan’s “Get on Your Feet” before capping it with Michael Jackson’s chart-topper, “Thriller.”

Strutt starts his 33rd year of teaching in the fall (11th at OHS), and he’s used to spending most of his summers working on the marching band routines. “As a music teacher, it’s pretty much normal that every summer you run a program,” he said.

It can be a bit taxing on the members of the band, especially if they’re involved in sports, the summer musical or taking summer school classes. Some kids, he said, are putting in 12-hour days at school during “summer vacation.”

“They’re great kids, and they work hard,” Strutt said. “They’re pretty competitive.”

The band is shooting for top honors at the state marching band festival in the fall, and that’s just a warmup. During the holidays, the band will travel to Tampa, Fla., for the Outback Bowl, in which a Southeastern Conference team takes on a Big 10 team, which last year was the Wisconsin Badgers.

The band is sure to get a chance to play during the halftime show at the Outback Bowl, but it will take the field with 2,000 high school musicians. If they win the Outback Bowl field show competition, however, the Hilltoppers will get the chance to perform its show on the field before the game.

The prospect of getting a chance to perform at the Outback Bowl might have something to do with the strong freshman class turnout for the marching band. The band features 140 musicians, plus 10 flag twirlers, and about 40 of them are freshmen.

“We’re really pleased that there are so many and really impressed that they’re so good,” Strutt said.

Senior drum major Dan Bristow also has been impressed with the freshmen and the band in general. “We’ve made some great, great, great improvement,” Bristow said. “We’re working hard, obviously.”

Bristow won’t be able to lead the Hilltoppers during half-time shows at OHS this fall because he plays on the defensive line for the football team. But a lot of the leadership required of the drum major happens long before the marching band takes the field. And besides the band has two other drum majors, Sam Mahr and Meghan Sorenson, to help keep things going.

Bristow said he’s excited about how “Johnny B. Goode” is coming together, and he can hardly wait to spring it on a crowd. “It’s a good classic rock song that people will know when they hear it coming down the street,” he said. “I really enjoy watching people really have a good time watching us.”

One thing will be missing from the Hilltoppers Marching Band when it performs in Monticello: baton twirlers.

Senior Cati Elsen and freshman Alayna Halverson both are going to a national baton twirling competition at Notre Dame University, Elsen going as Miss Majorette Wisconsin and Halverson as Miss Majorette of the north.

“They are so good. They are at such a high level,” Strutt said. “We certainly miss them every time they can’t step on that parade route with us. They’re two elite performers.”