Calhoun Alumni Choir members (and a few guests) have been preparing for the Follies performance on April 16, 6 p.m., at the Calhoun County Community Building. The twenty eight members in attendance Thursday evening have been rehearsing for the two hour show filled with solos, skits and choir performances as it was in the days of Joe Wilt and Charlie Miller, much loved Choir Directors of Calhoun High School. Eileen Metheney, former Choir Director of Calhoun Middle High School has been directing with Rick Poling as Pianist and Jim Sullivan as Master of Ceremony.
The Choir will be performing a few of the standards from days gone by and recreating an era of fond memories for most Calhoun Alumni. The Follies will take place in the Old Calhoun Gymnasium just as it did from 1969 forward which is being restored by The 1982 Foundation’s construction crew, Country Roads Construction, LLC.
Love seeing this! However, the funding for the Follies was cut by the school district in the mid 1990s which is why the Follies performances stopped. This had nothing to do with the school closing. I’m not sure of the exact year that they cut the funding, but someone else probably knows. Moving to the new school and beginning block scheduling (the old way it was done) ruined the music programs because students couldn’t fit music in their schedule unless they planned to continue in that field after high school. One by one great music teachers left because of this, and the school district used that opportunity to cut more music positions. I would like to see some people make some noise about that. A legacy was lost because of lack of support for the arts in a county that holds music so dearly. It is seriously a tragedy.
Whole heartedly agree! And Ridgeview would love to make some noise about it. I’ve never understood why sports (mainly football) gets so much attention (which its a great game and deserves it’s fair share) But tell me how many people benefit from sports once they’re out of school. A small small fraction. And yet, here I am, at 59 years of age, still playing, still singing and serving my community with music. I should be more active… let’s not go there. But music can be done even in the shape I’m in 😀 ~ Shari, RVN