Song of my Life

Twenty four hours from now, I'll be somewhere around Thurber, TX on my way to Sing Song 2006! Not only will I be going to watch Sing Song, but I'm actually going to be IN Sing Song! Me and my very best friends are going to be holding props for our club's act! We're going to be sheep. Actually, we aren't going to be sheep, but the girls in the act are going to be sheep. We'll probably be fences or something. I don't know. And then, if that weren't enough, I'm also going to be in the finale! This year is the 50th anniversary of Sing Song, so they invited all of the old hosts and hostesses back to sing in the closing number. I never really thought I'd be in Sing Song again! I hoped to someday be a judge (hint, hint to anyone reading this who might be able to get me a spot doing that,) but I never actually thought I'd be in it! I am SO excited!

Sing Song 2003 and 2004 were hands down the two best experiences of my time at ACU. In 2003, I had the privelege of directing GATA's act. It was insanely busy, but extremely fun. We spent many nights in the Taylor Elementary Cafeteria perfecting our songs and moves.


That was the last year GATA held on to third place overall. Of course, we felt robbed knowing that we really deserved first place (rrright) but the Lord smiled on us and showed us that he was happy with our performance.




The overall theme for that year was "Infinite Joy," and we could think of nothing that brought us more joy than a Snow Day! We dressed in our version of Old Navy Performance fleece, hats, scarves, and mittens, and sang a little diddy about snow.


I was a giant Starbucks cup. Starbucks is another completely joyful thing on a cold day. Unfotunately, the giant cup was made out of plywood and strapped to my back. I almost fell backwards off the stage more than once.



Thirty six hours after our final performance of "There's No Business Like Snow Business," the Abilene blizzard of 2003 began. ACU cancelled TWO DAYS of school for the first time in about 60 years. There was three feet of snow piled up between cars, and the school was absolutely covered in ice and snow.


Lectureship was exciting that year, to say the very least. And of course, we were ecstatic to see our Snow Day act come to life! You can't exactly see the snow in the picture to the left, but trust me. It was there.

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If I had to choose only one Sing Song as my favorite, though, it would obviously be Sing Song 2004: Silver Screen.

I'd always dreamed of being a Sing Song hostess, but didn't actually think that dream could ever become a reality. To someone who dreams of being a host or hostess, it's such a huge thing that you can't really imagine yourself there. My friend Katey, who was one of the co-chairs in 2004, convinced me I had to try out. The weekend before the auditions, I chose my songs and said alot of prayers.

I auditioned on a Tuesday night and went to bed before the callbacks were even posted. I didn't want to face the rejection of going up there to check my name on a list and it not be there. I told Katey to call me if I got one. About 11:00 pm, Katey called and said, "You'd better get up here right now to sign up for an interview time!" I screamed, cried, told her she was lying, and got up there as fast as my car would take me. The interview went well, the blending part of the callbacks went well, and then came the dance auditions. First, they made us walk back and forth across the stage, doing randome things like turning our heads on certain counts. Weird. Praise the Lord for marching band! I had no problem with that part. After that, Teri, our choreographer/dance instructor, taught us a ridiculously hard dance combination in about 3.5 seconds and expected us to be able to come out and do it. It wasn't pretty, but I did it. I missed a bunch in between the beginning and the end, but at least I did it with a smile. :) When the audition was over, we all prayed together and I laughed the whole thing off. I said they'd be crazy if they actually picked me. We all went home and waited for either the phone call telling us we hadn't made it or a van to come pick us up and congratulate us.

I walked into my house about ten minutes later to find at least twenty girls from club "watching a movie" at my house with my roommate Jen. I was too nervous to stay out there, so I went into my room and busied myself doing work or playing online or something. About an hour and a half later, the phone rang. It was ViVi, the wife of our director Kendall. The entire living room full of girls went silent trying to hear my end of the conversation. They knew what a phone call meant. Anyway, Vi said that it was taking longer than they expected to choose the people and so to keep holding on for a bit longer. What other choice did I have? I held on. Eventually the movie ended and everyone started to leave. I went into my room and started to get ready for bed. I came back out a few minutes later and Sumer was still in the living room. I walked through the living room, past the front door to go to Jen's room, and I see a HUGE WHITE VAN pull up in front of the house. I start screaming/crying and run into Jen's room. She didn't quite understand what was happening, so whenever people ran into my house to blindfold and kidnap me, she was ready to defend. Fortunately, she saw Katey and realized what was happening. As the group came in to get me, most of my club friends were standing out in the front yard cheering for me. They'd seen the van coming down the street as they were leaving, so they turned around to follow it. It was one of the happiest moments of my life!

They blindfolded me and put me into a van with the other people they were kidnapping. I wasn't really sure who was in the van with me, but I figured Cole and Jeffrey out whenever we went to pick them up. They took us to the dance studio and set us around the room in our blindfolds. After we were all in place, they told us to take off our blindfolds and see who our fellow hosts and hostesses were.

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We all met each other, laughed, ate cake, prayed, and had an excellent time. Out of the six of us, I only knew two of the boys. I had no clue that I would become so incredibly close to these people!

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That was November, and the next three months were a blur. We went on trips together, shopped together, ate together, sang together, got annoyed at each other together, danced together, cried together, laughed together, and loved together. It was the most incredible experience of my life.

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I grew so much and just really got to know myself as a person. I proved myself to many and made many proud. I miss Sing Song so much, I miss Kendall and ViVi, I miss my co-chairs, I miss my hosts and hostesses, I miss my accompanist (who is a host this year,) and I miss singing thirty hours a week!

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I am so thankful for this experience and I'm excited to see the kids this year who are doing the same thing I got to do. Mostly, though, I'm excited to get to see all my old friends and be in the show again!