BAND WORKS TO BEAUTIFY T.O. STREETS; LABOR INSTRUMENTAL TO ROSE PARADE GOAL.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Daily News Staff Writer

Members of the Thousand Oaks High School band got a lot of practice on Saturday for their turn in the 1999 Tournament of Roses Parade, all without playing a note.

Wearing bright orange vests, the more than 200 students and their families walked down the streets of Thousand Oaks, picking up trash, weeding planters and pruning trees, to spruce up the roadways as part of a citywide effort to beautify the town.

In exchange for ``adopting'' several miles of Olsen and Moorpark roads, the band received a $10,000 grant from the city to go toward their purchase of eleven new sousaphones to carry in the Jan. 1, 1999, parade.

``Our (sousaphones) are about 25 to 30 years old now and since we're marching in the Rose Parade in front of about a billion people we decided to try and buy some new ones,'' said Terry McCallum, a band booster and coordinator of the effort, as he supervised the work along Olsen Road. The band was the first recipient of the city's community enhancement grant, a program established with money from the city's solid waste fund and available to groups throughout the area.

A condition of the grant program is that the band has agreed to be responsible for cleaning the streets for an entire year. Band members said they plan to converge on the roadsides and medians every two or three months to keep them tidy.

Several of the band's sousaphone players said they were surprised that so many of their 240 fellow members arrived to help on Saturday since they will be the ones to get new instruments out of the labor.

``I'm surprised that they all showed up,'' said Seth Adelson, 14.

``And all the benefit is going to us,'' added fellow sousaphone player, Nick Hymes, 16.

``But the band is getting that nice tone behind it,'' McCallum reminded them.

Band boosters said the instruments are ordered and are set to arrive with just enough time to allow the musicians to get used to them before the big day. Much of the money the band has raised has been from local businesses and individuals, but they are still a bit short of their fund-raising goal.

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PHOTO (Color) Members of the Thousand Oaks High School band spent Saturday cleaning city streets.

Tina Gerson/Daily News