A meeting of music; choir reunion set

It'll be the meeting of the minds -- or at least the ages. Cape Girardeau Central High School alumni are organizing a reunion and concert that will bring together graduates who were once members of the school's choir.

The voices will converge for the public twice on the weekend of October 2: first, at the homecoming football game on Friday night, where the choir will sing the national anthem and their alma mater; and at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 3, with a free concert at Kinder Performance Hall.

Good ideas spark other good ideas, as was the case with the upcoming concert. Elizabeth Seesing, who graduated in 1979 and is now employed by the high school, said the idea came from graduates who took part in a couple of Southeast Missouri State University choir alumni reunions.

According to a recent Southeast Missourian article, these former students saw Judy Williams, Cape Girardeau Central's former choir director, who worked for the school from 1966 to 1996, at a reunion. The light bulb came on.

"Seesing and her former classmates asked Williams, who lives in Tennessee, whether she would be interested in returning for a high-school choir alumni reunion." Her interest was all that was needed to fuel their own, and they got busy planning.

"We just thought that it would be a good opportunity to get people together. And maybe even if they don't come back for their class reunion, something like this will draw people."

If ever there's an area of division among generations, it's music. Parents and children, for example, have argued over it for eons. It's been the catalyst for many a tense moment in the home and in the car, in fact -- genre, volume, lyric, instruments. This is what makes this event such a harmonious idea; it's a unifier. It'll bring together people who are different in so many ways in a show of appreciation for their craft and their roots. How appropriate that this takes place on homecoming weekend.

We encourage you to reserve that weekend for both the homecoming game and the concert.