One final note rang out in the silent auditorium. Senior Ericka Eidson stood on the stage and smiled toward the audience before breaking character and exiting the stage with her fellow choir members. Backstage, they spoke to each other in hushed excitement. As they prepared to get their props off of the stage, Eidson felt confident they would place in finals.
“We all felt really confident about it, but there was still, for some reason, that gut feeling that maybe something would happen or maybe we wouldn’t make it to finals,” Eidson said. “We made it to finals, and that was just the reassurance we were needing.”
Show choir participated in a competition against 10 other teams on Feb. 25 in Keller. For the first time in three years, the show choir made finals, ranking third in prelims and fifth in finals.
“We had a killer performance, and it was fan-freaking-tastic,” senior Jacqueline Lum said. “After prelims, we found out that we were third. That meant we beat nine different groups, and the judges really liked our show and understood what we were doing.”
The show choir practiced every Tuesday after school from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. as well as during their eighth-period class. On B-day Tuesdays, this meant they practiced just over four hours in a single rehearsal.
“I think that what makes it worth it is when people come up to you, and they’re like ‘man, Legacy always has really powerful shows,’” Lum said. “They always get you and make you want to do something about what happened.”
Unlike other show choir performances, the Bronco show choir did not tell a love story or portray a utopian society. The show this year, entitled One Day, expressed the hope for a safer future without gun violence. It followed the story of a world overrun by fear and violence slowly transitioning into a time where people could simply live their lives happily and as one united people.
“I didn’t [initially] really, fully understand the impact that it could make on people,” Eidson said. “It definitely hits everyone deep in the heart now, and we love performing it every single time.”
Though the students felt excited to bring home a trophy for their performance in Keller, Eidson expressed that the end goal for their show had not been the trophy or the position in finals.
“[The] whole point of our show was to send a message to the people who watched it,” Eidson said. “If someone can understand what’s going on and we can get that one person to maybe switch their mindset, we’ve done our job.”
