by Megan Gabehart
Greetings to all from SEK!
The Southeast District has had a wonderful and eventful few months as we have begun our new school year.
At the high school level, we held live auditions for all our high school honor ensembles on Saturday, November 5th. Independence Community College in Independence, KS was gracious enough to host the event for us, and we are grateful for the use of their facilities and their assistance in making the day run smoothly. Our high school honor jazz band, under the direction of clinician Dr. Craig Treinen from Washburn University, performed beautifully on November 16th at a joint concert with Pittsburg State University. Much thanks to our jazz band chair, Andrea Dinkel, for all her work in making it a success.
Our annual High School Mini-Convention was held Saturday, December 3rd, at Pittsburg State University. Our ensemble chairs, Cooper Neil for band, Carson Felt for orchestra, and Meredith Reid for choir, all did an amazing job organizing the day.
Our choir clinician was Dr. Julie Yu from Kansas State University, our orchestra clinician was Dr. Thomas Dickey from Oklahoma State University, and our band clinician was Mrs. Jamie Minneman from Barton Community College. All three ensembles had amazing performances and proudly represented the 29 schools participating that day.
We have also selected the members for our honor elementary school choir, honor middle school choir, and honor middle school band. These students look forward to performing at our Elementary/Middle School Mini-Convention on Saturday, January 14th, at Chanute High School in Chanute, Kansas. Our ensemble chairs, Felicia Graves for Middle School Band, Breana Clark for Middle School Choir, and Cindy Rucker for Elementary Choir, are hard at work to ensure the best possible experience for our students, and we look forward to a successful day.
Each year the Southeast District recognizes three outstanding teachers, one each from elementary, middle, and high school levels, as well as one outstanding administrator from our district. This year at our December event, we honored Nancy Riecker from Waverly as our Outstanding Middle School Music Educator, Jeff Russell from Prairie View as our Outstanding High School Music Educator, and Jeff Staley from Pittsburg as our Honor Administrator. Alan Paxson from Chetopa will be recognized at our January event as our Outstanding Elementary School Music Educator. Many thanks to these individuals for all their hard work promoting music education in Southeast Kansas.
