Behind the scenes of Spring Sing

Alumna shares perspective of ties made in Spring Sing 

Written by: Lisa Herndon

 

The conversation in my office at Oklahoma Christian University Support Central the past few weeks has been pretty comical.

Bleary-eyed students show up for work and when I ask them how they’re doing, the answer is always the same.

Tired.

Faculty and staff members who come in and out of the office complain that students have lost their focus.

“And for what?” they ask. “For something that will be of no future value. Will hours and hours of Spring Sing practice make them more attractive to a future employer? It can’t even be put on a resume.”

I’ve asked several of the students I interact with, “Why do you do it?”

The answers vary.

Some say they were voluntold.

Others don’t know why they do it.

They just follow the crowd.

But some know exactly why they participate.

“Spring Sing is the time when the people in your club stop being ‘just the people in your club,’” senior Hannah Fuller said. “They become your sisters.”

Even when I was a student, I had a love/hate relationship with Spring Sing.

I hated the way people took it so seriously. I wasn’t a big fan of late night practices.

I generally dislike any activity with the word mandatory in it.

But even I have to admit there is nothing like that moment when you are standing in the cold outside Hardeman Auditorium.

You can hear the ending of the song just before it’s your turn to go on stage.

You’re praying that your music starts, and the lights work and you don’t trip over your two left feet.

It’s then that you look into the faces of your friends.

You’ve spent what seems like every waking moment of the last month practicing songs and choreography that you probably won’t remember in a few months.

But you realize that the friendships you’ve solidified during this month will be friendships that will last the rest of your life.

It’s in that moment that you decide it just might all be worth it.

So go out there and do your best. Show us your Spring Sing smile.

We’ll be there cheering you on and praying you don’t trip over your two left feet.

Just don’t expect us to buy your excuses when you’re late to work or class.

The awesome dance moves you’ve mastered the last few months probably won’t land you a job.

They definitely won’t help your GPA.

Still, there are benefits to balancing it all and still managing to keep your sanity.

In this hectic time, you just might make some friendships and memories that will last a lifetime.

 

 

Singing in the spring; the school tradition 

Written by: Jacob Dale

 

When I arrived on campus in 2010, I had no earthly idea what Spring Sing was. Within a few short weeks, I learned that it was Oklahoma Christian University’s biggest event of the year in which I assumed somebody would sing… in the spring.

The next semester I found myself at the Thursday evening show about to finally learn what Spring Sing was.

It was then, basking in the radiance of what I had just witnessed, that I understood what Spring Sing was: a bunch of people humiliating themselves on a stage for money.

Of course, the next year I found myself getting roped into Spring Sing after rushing Chi, a time during which my paradigm of Spring Sing shifted once again.

The night of the Friday performance, we were all in the gym milking every last minute for practice time. Every member had on his Benjamin Franklin or George Washington wig  and was practicing his most … flamboyant face. Then someone gave a speech – probably Danny Davis, our director that year – emphasizing something that has stuck with me.

He said that while Spring Sing is about having fun, bonding with fellow club members and putting on a great show, it is also an opportunity to continue a tradition that our alumni look forward to every year. Our performances are an interaction between the current student body and those who have graduated.

I think it is easy for us as students to take our time at college for granted. Spring Sing is a time when alumni reminisce fondly about “the good old days” when they were the ones performing in the show. Chi does Spring Sing for its alumni, giving it every ounce of effort to make our graduated members proud (although an alumnus will never admit that your show was better than the one they were in), as every club does as well.

I first thought Spring Sing was silly, until I realized that it was still silly … but the kind of silly that fondly reminds people of the great times they had at Oklahoma Christian.