On Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2010, three quartets from Liberty High School in Brentwood CA, visited six schools in Santa Cruz under the auspices of the Gold Standard Chorus. In two teams, they visited Monte Vista Christian School, Aptos HS, Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz HS, Pacific Collegiate, and Mission Hills Middle School.
JAG, Diva (not shown), and Pink Ladies sang a few songs at each school and taught tags.
They brought self-assurance, poise, energy and bright smiles. They very obviously were having a good time. They had instant rapport with their peers. They were cool, with it, or down (or whatever the current teen lingo is). So their message that "barbershop is fun," got through to their audiences. They present this message much, much more effectively than any quartet from our chorus could. So the bottom line is that they were extremely effective for our school visit program.
It took a lot of work from our chorus: Bev introduced the visitors at Aptos HS. Dale delivered (lunch) pizza to Mission Hills. Joe and Gerry delivered SFYL checks to four of the schools and took pictures.
Think about the work contributed by their teacher and two drivers/chaperones. Sue Stuart, teacher at Liberty High School, came with her students. Sue has a terrific BBS program going at her school, with three perpetual quartets. We were very fortunate that she could bring them to Santa Cruz on a day when there was no school in Brentwood. (She must also have a very good parent support group; two quartet parents, Mario Luci and Kathy Tickner, drove and chaperoned two of the quartets.) They drove two hours each way. Must have gotten up at 5 in the morning.
JAG, student quartet (Taylor Fulton, Jordan Tickner, Robert Jewell, Eldon Raudebaugh) from Liberty HS in Brentwood CA sings to students at Aptos HS in Santa Cruz CA.