Ram Jive is the jazz choir from Greene County High School that had a number of seniors who contributed to this year’s success.

The jazz choir won a contest at North Polk High School, received a Division I-rating at the Iowa High School Music Association State Jazz Choir Festival and had a third place finish at the Iowa Vocal Jazz Championships, which according to Director Dave Heupel is the highest the group has finished in program history. 

Olivia Hoyt is one of two seniors in Ram Jive that have participated for four years and shares her thoughts on her final performance at the Iowa Vocal Jazz Championships.

“The thing that we were told going into this performance was ‘have as much fun with it as you can.’ And so coming home, knowing that we all did our best, and that we got third place in such a competitive group of (jazz) choirs, it was really cool to kind of have that win going out.”   

Senior Gavin Vander Linden looks back on what made this group as successful as it was.

“This is definitely been I think the best year that I’ve been a part of it in terms of you know, the set that we did and how like the voices blend together. It’s just a good group that Mr. Heupel picked from the auditions and all that we had in the fall and it turned out pretty good.”  

The other seniors on Ram Jive included Ava Schilling, Bill Wright, Lily Hinote, along with Daniel Strawn on tenor sax and Sarah Hengst on alto sax as part of the music ensemble.