Students and faculty of the Becker Middle School started their Christmas break in high style with the annual Holiday Talent Show in the Performing Arts Center at Becker High School Tuesday morning. The show featured 21 listed acts, plus a special surprise finale that will be all but impossible to top next year.
BMS English teacher Sandy Hayes took on the key role of event organizer for the production, scurrying around backstage and on-stage to position pianos, microphones and performers, bringing order out of Holiday chaos again this year.
Stand-outs among the enthusiastic band of performers included singers Colton Johannes (“Wrecking Ball”); Alexis Materu (“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”), Cerena Johnson (“True Light”) and Jessica Gruenes (“Coming Home”). Singer Nick Hillyer received a standing ovation from his peers for his rendition 0f “Stand by Me” during the program. Other notables included Nick Nelson’s drumming video, Bella Pettit’s video and live dry ice science experiment, Julia Bengtson, Alayna Lindquist and Courtney Nuest played guitars, piano and sang (“Light of the World”), Eli Brown played “The Maple Leaf Rag” on the piano and Bella Watts closed out the student portion of the program with an often-airborne ballet performance titled “Chains”.
The program also included a video notice announcing auditions in January for the BMS production of Disney’s “The Lion King”. The large-cast musical will be produced this spring in the Performing Arts Center at BHS.
Shortly after that, music teacher Kristi Lovold brought a group of student singers onto the stage to sing the Holiday classic “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Hilarity ensued when school staff appeared on-stage in the appropriate costumes to enact the various activities described in the song, including the “six geese a-laying”, “eight maids a milking” and “ten lords a-leaping”, along with the proverbial “partridge in appear tree”.
The act concluded to thunderous applause from the assembled students, a fitting send-off for the start of the Christmas season.
