By Sue Kiesewetter
Enquirer contributor

FAIRFIELD - For the past month, Dyona Davis has called a rolling motor coach home, sleeping on gymnasium floors at schools across the country.

But the 21-year-old soprano trumpet player from Cullowhee, N.C., says she wouldn't trade a day. Not even on days like Tuesday, when the afternoon clinic was delayed an hour after a brief lightning storm and cut short when a second storm blew through.

This is the second year Davis has played with The Glassmen, a Toledo-based drum and bugle corps. The Glassmen were one of nine groups of 14- to 21-year-olds that competed in the Drum Corps International sanctioned Summer Music Games 2003 at Fairfield Stadium.

"It's really fast paced. It just moves and moves and moves. Another day, another show,'' said Davis, who is a Western Carolina University education major.

"We work hard. We relax hard. We learn so much about music, about discipline, about growing up. We learn about life and how to strive for goals.''

This is the fourth year the games have been in Fairfield, but the 19th year Fairfield's marching band and Tempo Club have hosted the event. In prior years, the competition was at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati or Galbreath Field in Mason.

Planning for the annual show began almost immediately after the 2002 competition season ended, said Bruce Brown, contest director.

It is the group's largest fund-raiser of the year, netting $8,000 to $12,000 annually after expenses totaling nearly $25,000, said Fairfield parent Tony Brough, housing coordinator. His two sons compete with a drum and bugle corps based in Madison, Wis. and Lexington. Neither was at the Fairfield competition.

"These are the best and brightest, most talented kids,'' said Pam Elcik, who arranged for 145 volunteers to help set up, sell tickets, operate the concession stand and other duties.

This is the third year that Glassmen instructor Steve Collins has worked with the group. The Plymouth, Mich., school social worker said he sticks with drum and bugle corps because he believes in what it teaches kids.

"The best thing this does is it teaches these kids how to rely on other human beings,'' said Collins, 32. "They make friends. They are with each other 24 hours a day.''

The season will end for top groups at the Florida Citrus Bowl in Orlando, where the DCI World Championships will be Aug. 4-9.

"We keep getting better as we go,'' Collins said. "We want to make sure we peak in mid-August, not in July.''