By Janelle Fisher
City Pages Editor
More than 100 Ashwaubenon students will hit the field at select home games this football season, but they won’t be playing football.
Members of the Ashwaubenon Jaguar Band, which Band Director Ellen Moon says has grown significantly in the past few years, will be playing their instruments and providing halftime entertainment.
“We are at about 130 students this year, which is some pretty major growth,” she said. “After the COVID years, the numbers dropped quite a bit, so we are really, really growing. We’ve got almost 100% retention of students from last year, so people are joining and they’re staging with the band. Most come to us from Parkview Middle School — they’ve got a really nice feeder program there — and then they stick with us, most of them through their senior year.”
Every band member at Ashwaubenon High School, Moon said, is also a member of the marching band.
“I don’t know if that’s something unique that we do, but our whole band participates in marching band,” she said. “So we have all 130 of us out there, freshmen through seniors. It’s a really cool way for the freshman to right away feel a part of everything and a part of the traditions and they don’t have to wait to be on the field. They’re marching together.”
Those traditions, Moon said, are rooted in strong band and community values.
“Something that’s really kind of special about Ashwaubenon, too, is that we have some really strong traditions that the students really value, and I think the community really values,” she said. “We have a marching style and formations we do — each year we make a big paw print on the field and we spell out the word Jags. We’re going to look good. We’re going to have great posture. We’re going to sound really good. I think they value those things and really try to instill that in our new students.”
Helping to keep those traditions alive are the band directors, of which Moon said there have been relatively few in recent decades.
“There’s only been a couple of head band directors over the last like 40 years at Ashwaubenon,” she said. “One of them was my dad, Greg Sauve, who then mentored Marc Jimos, who is currently the head director and who is now mentoring me. I’m also an alumni of Ashwaubenon myself, so we are kind of keeping things close to keep that tradition alive.”
While the set list changes from year to year, Moon said the band usually performs a mix of old and new songs, as well as familiar and unfamiliar songs in their halftime shows, and this year’s line up is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.
“We like to pick some current tunes that people will recognize and that are popular today, and then there’s some classics we do — kind of old rock or classic rock,” she said. “We’re doing “Livin La Vida Loca” this year — a tune which people should recognize… Our first halftime show, we’re kind of calling it a Latin fire theme. We’re opening with a really exciting song called “Fierro” and then “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” and then we’ve got this big percussion feature… People always just kind of go nuts for percussion so we’re going to have them right out front and it should be pretty cool.”
Having just finished band camp earlier this month, getting band members familiar with the music and marching patterns, Moon said the Ashwaubenon Jaguar Band is on track for a great year.
“The kids seemed really excited this year,” she said. “Really motivated. Great energy. And they sounded really good already and looked good.”
The Ashwaubenon Jaguar Band will perform at the high school’s Sept. 22 and Oct. 6 varsity games. Keep up with the band by following Ashwaubenon Jaguar Band on Facebook.