Inaugural impression

It wasn’t perfect.

The weather took care of that.

But overall the reviews were positive Saturday for the inaugural Jay County Show Choir Spectacular.

“I think they ran a great, great competition,” said Dave Banks, director of third-place finisher Walsh Jesuit. “It was very friendly. It was a very open atmosphere. They helped everybody out. I thought it was run first class.”

After some students and volunteers stayed until about 11:30 p.m. Friday getting things set up, the calls started coming in at 6 a.m. Saturday. The ice and snow, which was more severe to the north, was preventing schools from leaving on time.

“That continued to happen all morning long,” said Jay County High School choir director Susan Denney. “So every time we developed a new schedule, we would get a new call …”

One of those was from Huntington North, which had to pull its two choirs from the competition because of the travel conditions.

So, the schedule was off from the start. But that didn’t seem to dampen spirits.

“It was great,” said senior Belle Miller of Carroll, which won the inaugural grand championship with its show based on the story of Scheherazade. “It may have been a little hectic with the delay and everything, but everyone was super welcoming, generous, kind, got us where we needed to go.”

In addition to the overall win, Carroll’s Minstrel Magic also earned the honors for best vocals, best choreography and best soloist. Northrop’s Charisma, which had a show based on disaster movies, was the runner-up, and Walsh Jesuit’s Harmony Gold finished third with its performance based on the movie “WALL-E.”

Carroll Minstrel Magic was tops in the large mixed division (choirs with more than 37 performers). The Bishop Luers Minstrels were first in the small mixed division, and Carroll Select Sound won the all-girl division.

Jay County’s Blake Caldwell, who was one of the hosts for Carroll, said spending the day with the grand champion group was a great learning experience.

“The warm-ups, the sound on stage, it’s way different than what we have right now,” he said. “We’re small-mixed, but we’ve got to learn how to mimic that with having less numbers.”

One of Denney’s goals, perhaps her biggest one, going into the weekend, was that she and her students create a positive environment. Based on the comments late Saturday, that was a success.

Carroll senior Emily Bloom pointed out that while the day was hectic, stress was kept to a minimum. When problems arose, everyone was easy to work with.

“It was really nice to know people are on your side,” she added. “I think my favorite part was probably the atmosphere. I think everyone was just having a really good time. It was really fun.”

There were other favorite parts as well — “I liked the pizza” — said Walsh Jesuit senior Katie Gordon. (She apparently wasn’t the only one. More than 1,000 slices were sold Saturday.) She also echoed Bloom’s thoughts, saying little things like some extra time in the warmup room were greatly appreciated.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Gordon. “When someone told me that it was the first competition I was really surprised because everything was really organized.”

While Jay County’s choirs have participated in plenty of competitions before, they knew hosting would be a whole different experience.

The students were warned that they would be exhausted — they arrived at JCHS at 6 a.m. Saturday morning and didn’t leave until about midnight — and were advised to bring a pillow to be able to catch a quick nap during downtime. Those opportunities never came, but it didn’t matter.

“I didn’t really need it,” said JCHS senior Kenna Kahlig. “I feel like I was just full of adrenaline all day. It was so fun.”

That attitude was one of the things Denney enjoyed as the night came to a close.

“It’s really fun when you’re watching to see the energy level these high school kids have when they’re exhausted but excited to do awards,” she said.

Among the goals when deciding to host a competition were getting experience and making money.

The first of those was a success. With all of the schedule changes, Jay County’s choirs moved to perform earlier in the day, filling the spots left open by Huntington North. They performed in exhibition, receiving comments from the judges that will help them as they prepare for the rest of their season.

As for the other goal, Denney said she’s not sure how the first competition will fare financially. Having a couple of groups drop out put a dent in the sale of tickets and concessions.

“But when you see this in action and the good PR it does for our choral program and for Jay County High School and our community, how do you not do it again if you did it well?” she said. “And people say they want to come back.”