Students shine at last weekend’s ‘Night of the Stars’

by Frank Lee

operations@thenewsleaders.com

The Kennedy Honor Choir took the spotlight at the 16th annual Night of the Stars variety show benefiting student activities and educational opportunities at the Paramount Center for the Arts in St. Cloud.

The group of about 25 students in sixth through eighth grades performed the evening of Feb. 24 and 25 by singing in German “The Orchestra Song,” a traditional Austrian folk song, at the two-day event presented by District 742 Local Education and Activities Foundation.

“They are a group of students that come to school early every Wednesday to rehearse,” said Kayla Jennissen, a music specialist at Kennedy Community School in St. Joseph. “It’s an extra-curricular activity, so it doesn’t matter what their regular music choice is at Kennedy. There are band, orchestra, choir and general music students all involved in it.”

The Night of the Stars, held each February or March, is a major fundraiser for LEAF, with proceeds divided between the school-activities programs that sell tickets and the LEAF Endowment. It brings in almost $25,000 in revenue per year, according to officials.

“It was a wonderful show and such a positive reflection on District 742,” said Bruce Hentges, executive director of LEAF and District 742 school board member, who praised the 27 boys and girls in the Kennedy Honor Choir for singing “with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm.”

The Night of the Stars talent show benefit began in 2002 at the St. Cloud Civic Center as part of LEAF’s efforts to save junior-high activities and promote the work of LEAF and the impact of endowment-funded grant cycles for District 742 activities.

“The Honor Choir students don’t get to work together during the rest of the school day . . . so the concept of teamwork – working with students you maybe don’t know well, that you don’t have as much in common (with) – has been really important because a choir is all about teamwork and making sure everybody is blending together, everybody knows their part, and if someone doesn’t know their part, you’re helping them out,” Jennissen said.

LEAF’s endowment fund provides supplemental funding for academics, activities, arts and athletics in the St. Cloud Area School District 742 public schools, which includes Kennedy Community School in St. Joseph.

“We hope your students enjoyed the experience of being on stage in front of a big crowd at the Paramount,” Hentges said in an e-mail to Jennissen after the variety show. “They certainly seemed enthusiastic and looked like they were having fun!”

The District 742 Local Education and Activities Foundation was founded in 1993 as a fully independent, non-profit organization “for the purpose of promoting and enhancing school-based, extra-curricular activities and educational opportunities in District 742 Public Schools.”

“They did fabulously,” Jennissen said of the Kennedy Honor Choir’s performance. “Most of the kids had not performed in front of a crowd that big before, but some of them described it as exhilarating and just exciting to sing in front of an audience of that size and get the applause afterward.”

For the first three years of the annual event, the Civic Center showcased athletic clinics and music activities and featured alumni pro athletes Jim Eisenreich, Jim Fahnhorst and Keith Fahnhorst in appearances in addition to exceptional music alumni who have graced the concert stage.

“About the importance of music, I could go on for days and days,” Jennissen said. “But with this particular group, I think they come to Honor Choir every week because it’s a way for them to express themselves in a creative way.”

The venue for Night of the Stars was relocated to the Paramount Center for the Arts in 2005 while introducing the new format of a variety show intended to appeal to an audience of all ages.

“So often in schools, students don’t get a lot of creative choice in what they do and in music,” she said. “And especially with Honor Choir, it’s based upon their own creativity, their own interpretation of the music, and they are able to take that and kind of go with it.”

The goals of the annual event include raising a minimum of $20,000 for the Leaf Endowment, to distribute at least $8,000 directly to activities programs through ticket sales, and raising awareness of LEAF and its mission and the importance of student activities.

“As I mentioned to several people this weekend, just being around great ‘professional educators’ and watching the way each works with kids reminded me we are fortunate to have such a great teaching staff in District 742,” Hentges told Jennissen and other teachers in the public-school district.

The Night of the Stars Silent Auction, a hallmark of the event since its inception, was housed in the Paramount lobby but became an on-line auction to coincide with the event, which was expanded into two shows in 2006 that were held Friday and Saturday starting in 2009.

“I think one of the main things about Honor Choir that is so important is it’s kids in sixth through eighth grades working together . . . and the performing in front of an audience part is really good for building self-confidence in these students,” Jennissen said.

“A lot of them,” she added, “said they had started out being really scared, when they walked out on stage and saw several-hundred people staring back at them, but they said as the song went on, they kind of forgot about the performance part until they got to the end and were validated by applause.”

Those who participated in Night of the Stars are as follows: Samantha Adams, Grace Allen, Ellie Barnes, Jonathan Becker, Emma Bergwall, Audrey Birkholz, Jan-Rose Davis, Kaley Emery, Taya Frank, Jackson Gerads, Gretta Gunn, Jared Hennigs, Samuel Kloss, Ashley Kockler, Kyra Kotsmith, Harris Lahti, Sidney Loehlein, Jacob Lopau, Allison Moon, Jasmine Oliver, Alan Peterson, Evan Peterson, Emma Safford, Kiley Swenson, Nicole Swenson, Brandon Zimmer and  Lindsey Zimmer.