About 60 million Americans will switch on the TV on Thursday morning to join a national ritual: the 77th annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

	V.W.H. Campbell, Post-Gazette Phil Wonderling, assistant band director, checks the band's formation lines during rehearsal in the Franklin Regional High School parking lot. Click photo for larger image. Related article How Franklin Regional was chosen to represent state in Macy's parade

There in New York City, beneath the Bart Simpson and Big Bird balloons, they'll see the blazing blue and gold of the Franklin Regional marching band.

After years of practice and fund raising, 166 students from the Murrysville area school district will march, twirl, dance and roll the 2.5 miles from Central Park to Herald Square. They're one of 10 bands in the country chosen to perform in the event this year.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most of these kids," said Kevin Pollock, director of the high school marching band. "Nothing can compare with what is waiting for them in New York City."

What they know now is the huge effort it has taken to prepare for the parade: Hundreds of hours of fund raising to help pay more than $88,000 for the trip. Countless hours of practice. Daily conversations with Scholastica Travel, of Greensburg, which planned the itinerary for the four-day trip.

Band members and nine chaperones will travel in four buses that leave at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. Another 200 family members are expected to travel in two other buses or privately. A 24-foot truck donated by Respironics Corp. will carry uniforms and instruments.

The itinerary includes sightseeing, a Broadway show, Radio City Music Hall, Thanksgiving dinner for 351 at their hotel and a visit to the site of the former World Trade Center. And, oh, yes, the parade.

V.W.H. Campbell, Post-Gazette The Franklin Regional High School band rehearses in the school parking lot for its appearance in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Click photo for larger image.

On Wednesday, the schedule is light after dinner because band members will get wake-up calls at 12:45 a.m. Thursday to begin preparing for the parade. They will leave no later than 1:45 a.m. so they can be in place at 3:10 a.m. for a formal practice for NBC, which televises the parade.

After practice, it's off to Planet Hollywood for breakfast. Then there will be some down time before the band gets in line at 7:30 a.m. Al Roker, of NBC's "Today Show," is expected to interview local band members before the parade begins at 9 a.m. Franklin Regional will be the second band to perform.

Macy's isn't shy about promoting its parade.

"This is one of the best 10 bands in America," trumpets a Macy's press release. "As they step in front of the World's Largest Store and the NBC cameras, they take their place in the history book of America!"

Similarly, Pollock speaks highly of his students.

"These students are the cream of the crop at Franklin Regional," he said. "They are talented, tough and extremely disciplined."

They need to be disciplined to meet Macy's strict demands.

On Thanksgiving morning, Herald Square is a barricaded, VIP-only enclave -- family members and about 2 million other ordinary folk are kept behind barriers several blocks away, out of TV-camera range. Parade marshals patrol the route and enforce Macy rules, backed by New York's finest. Everyone in the parade must obey instantly, from float-bound Santas to baton-twirlers.

Standards are high. No exceptions are made.

"You forget a glove, you don't march," Pollock warned his band at a recent planning session.

"You have a loose thread on your sleeve, you're out. Forgot your dark-colored socks? You stay on the bus. You've got to have a mental checklist, and you've got to keep to it."

The "Official Macy's Parade Policy for Student Performers" was handed out to parents in late October:

No nail polish. No piercings. No jewelry. No dyed or unbound hair. Only one brand and shade of lipstick is acceptable: Mary Kay "sagewood." And only girls are allowed to wear it.

Everyone in the band must don long underwear, even if it's 75 degrees -- except for the baton- and flag-twirlers. There's a special subset of rules for them: Baton-tips must be snowy white and smear-free. No drinks, gum, "conspicuous hair pins," or "loose or discolored sequins."

And maybe the toughest rule of all for nervous teenagers: no talking.

Rigid rules aren't unusual when a band hits the big time, said Carla Gialloreto, a former University of Pittsburgh Golden Girl now in charge of Franklin Regional's "band front," a lineup of 17 flag-waving "silks," five baton-twirling majorettes, 20 Pantherette pompom dancers and an honor guard of 10. Two of her honor guard members use wheelchairs -- a unique feature that landed the band on national television last week.

"The [parade producers] have their standards. They have a show to produce, and we are cast members," Gialloreto said. "They're putting out a first-class product, so we have to be as first class as they are."

The goal, she said, is a lineup of performers who look exactly alike.

"Imagine trying to pick one Rockette from the lineup. That's what we want," Gialloreto said.

And the kids are all right with that.

"We don't mind," Pantherette Jennie Ziringer said. "They just want us to look the absolute best. It feels great to be part of a whole. Everybody looks really good, really all the same, for as long as the show lasts. But it is a show. And when it's over, we are all very much our own selves!"

"I think kids like structure," said Leslie Ziringer, Jennie's mom and a "fund-raising firebrand," according to Pollock. "Franklin Regional has a great reputation for its music program. They're very strict, very structured. They ask a lot of the kids. But what a quality product they have."

Becoming "product" isn't cheap.

Aside from the cost of uniforms, maintenance, repairs and several meals, the four-day tourist trip to New York City this week costs $527 per student. To help offset the cost, Band Boosters sold 2,671 cases of citrus, washed hundreds of cars and hawked thousands of Cow Patty Bingo tickets. The boosters raised $375 for each participant. No one stays home for lack of funds, Leslie Ziringer said.

Meantime, the students have polished their shoes, plucked their eyebrows, tuned their horns, and practiced, practiced, practiced.

Put them all together on the pavement, and they're precision perfection -- cuffs clean, creases pressed, in-step and on-key, twirling and smiling straight through Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band."

And behind each smiling, scrubbed band member are one or two beaming parents: grinning, frazzled and spent. Many plan to accompany their children to New York, to stand along the avenue and pick out their child as the band marches by.

In most cases, they are the ones who had the uniform cleaned, hauled the clarinet to the repair shop, winced as the offspring squawked and bashed his way through a tough new piece of music.

Parents with children under Gialloreto's command spend hours sewing on fresh sequins and snipping away loose threads. And once the headpieces and hair nets, gloves and multiple pantyhose layers are found and fitted, there's little time to ponder the baton dents on the dining-room ceiling.

There are lumps and bumps to worry about.

"Macy's requires the flesh-colored body suit, which I'm sure you've all purchased already," Gialloreto told the parents' assembly. "If it's really cold that morning, I recommend the girls wear two pairs of hose.

"Parents, check your daughters," she warned. "We want no lumps or bumps. We want your daughter to stay warm, but we need a smooth, clean line."

Jennie Ziringer said she had three pairs of pantyhose ready for the march.

"I'll just have to be cold," she said. "Two miles is an exceptionally long parade. But I'll be so excited, I probably will be shaking anyway."

"I can't wait," her mother added. "This isn't just for the kids, or us parents, or the band leaders or the school. This entire community has put so much into making this happen. ...

"I really believed in this. I wanted it to happen. It was such a tremendous opportunity for these kids. I knew we could do it."