Band

• Alumni Pep Band Night kicked off the basketball pep band season this year.  The Tiger Pep Band will continue to support the basketball team at several home games in February.
• The pit band for musical started rehearsing before school a few weeks ago to prepare for the 2020 NHS Musical: Spamalot (February 16 & 17).  The NHS Concert Band is preparing music for two upcoming performances.
• On February 26, the NHS Concert Band will perform for a panel of three adjudicators at the annual WSMA Instrumental Music Festival taking place at Northwestern in our auditorium.  For this event, the group will be performing Chant and Jubilo by Francis McBeth, Chasing Sunlight by Cait Nishimura and The Perfect Morning by Darryll Johnson II.  They will add Imaginarium by Randall D. Standridge, as well as a brand new work for band by Ian Deterling, for the NHS Spring Concert on Monday, March 9 (7:30 pm).

You can follow the band on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/northwesternhighschoolband/

Choir

The choir said goodbye to our student teacher, Ms. Olson, at the end of the semester. As our new semester begins, we are working on music for the Spring Concert on Monday, March 9 at 7:30pm. For that concert, we will share the stage with the band, and will perform some music from our large group competition. That competition will take place on the Luostari stage on March 11. The choir performs music from the state’s Class A contest list, the most difficult music category. 

At the end of February, the group will make its annual trip to Chanhassen Dinner Theatres to see The Music Man.

DECA

Your NHS DECA Chapter competed at UW-Stout on January 11th.  We had 36 competitors attend the conference.  From that 36, we had 21 students who medaled.  That’s almost 60% of the chapter who got up on stage!  Moreover, the following students placed in their events:

• Kylie Benesch and Brianna Linderholm: 3rd Place in Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making
• Brooklyn DeGraef: 2nd Place in Restaurant and Food Service Management
• Ryleigh Hill and Jocelyn Luostari: 1st Place in Hospitality Services and Team Decision Making

Moving forward, 10 student representatives will be competing or participating at the State Career Development Conference in March at the Grand Lake Geneva Resort.  Wish them luck!

Forensics

The forensics (speech) season is upon us. We have 27 groups of speakers preparing speeches, reading poetry, or memorizing scripts to perform for speech judges. Our first competition will take place on February 27 at Northwestern. Students perform three times for three different judges in hopes of earning enough points to advance to the next level of competition. We will need some volunteers to help our event run smoothly. :) In addition, the public is invited to come and watch students perform. The rounds will be roughly at 4pm, 5:30pm, and 7pm.

Musical

Even amidst the flu and other ailments, the rehearsals for the 2020 musical, Spamalot, have been intense in January, as the cast and crew gets set for opening night on Feb. 15 and 16. Tickets for the show are now on sale in the high school office!

National Honor Society

The National Honor Society just wrapped up the 4th annual Dodgeball event to raise money for a local organization.  This year the National Honor Society chose to support CASDA (Center Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse).  The dodgeball tournament raised over $200 that will be donated to CASDA.

Next up is volunteering for the Birkie in February.  A group of National Honor Society members will be going to Hayward to volunteer at the Bib Pick Up station at the American Birkebeiner.  

Solo & Ensemble (music)

Students in the band and choir are getting ready for solo and ensemble competition that will take place in March in Ashland. Several soloists and small groups have gotten music to rehearse on their own, and they will then perform for judges at the competition.