One musical group was recently selected to perform in a prestigious state contest.

Greene County High School’s jazz choir Ram Jive will compete with seven other Class 3A high schools at the Iowa Vocal Jazz Championships later this month. Vocal Director Dave Heupel tells Raccoon Valley Radio the day the qualifiers were announced, he wanted to keep it secret until he shared the news later that night at the high school Pops Concert.

“A few of them knew that the announcement was supposed to come out that day and a few asked, they said, ‘Do we hear about championships yet?’ And I said, ‘No. Sometimes they’re really slow about getting back.’ So I told the audience, I said, ‘I lied right to some of their faces that day because they were asking.’ I did get a text from one of the members that said, ‘I think that you already know but you’re just not telling us,’ and she was right, but it was a fun thing to do that way and be able to tell everybody at the same time.”    

Heupel was especially proud when he saw the other schools listed for IVJC in Class 3A.

“I know (Class) 3A is very tough to get in. There’s so many good groups and one of the first things I noticed, I looked at the rest of the groups on there and thought, ‘Wow this is a loaded group of 3A schools. On the schedule, we’ll be in between Mount Vernon and Solon, which have both won championships. It’s really stacked.”    

The Iowa Vocal Jazz Championships will take place at Spirit Lake High School on March 28th. To see the full list of all the qualifying schools in all four classes, click the link below.

https://iowavocaljazzchampionships.weebly.com/uploads/6/7/0/0/67006809/2023_ivjc_schedule.pdf