Students qualify for state choir

Jessica Austad and Kaylyn Cripps

Jessica Austad and Kaylyn Cripps

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

— Two Gentry High School choir students received high scores from judges and qualified to be a part of the Northwest Arkansas All-Region Mixed Choir and will represent Gentry at the Nov. 5 clinic to be held at Springdale High School.

Jessica Austad, daughter of Matt and Irma Austad, and Kaylyn Cripps, daughter of Eldon and Kaye Cripps, auditioned for judges on Oct. 1, at Har-Ber High School in Springdale. Austad placed eighth chair in the Soprano One section of the choir, and Cripps placed fourth chair in the Alto One section. The girls competed against 950 other northwest Arkansasstudents for the choir positions.

Both Austad and Cripps scored high enough to try out for the Arkansas All-State Choir at Arkadelphia in February. There, they will compete with the top singers in each of the six Arkansas regions.

"Both girls are outstanding senior choir members and have worked very hard and have definitely earned this honor," said Trella Yates, Gentry High School choir director. "We are looking forward to the clinic in November and will start working on the four new songs they have to learn for the state auditions in February. We are aiming high and hope both girls make state this year," she said.

Cripps was also recently honored as the winner of a regional Voice of McDonalds contest. McDonalds will be providing her additional voice training and professionally recording aperformance of Cripps to be used for the national Voice of McDonalds competition, with online voting for the winner now to be held during the month of November.

News, Pages 7 on 10/26/2011