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During her first year of teaching, Diann Magnus saw something in one of her fifth graders…something the student didn’t yet see in herself.

The Kingfisher music teacher found a way to convince Elizabeth Rutherford to sing a solo in her class’s performance of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”

“She was so nervous,” Magnus recalled.

But Rutherford nailed the performance.

“After that,” Magnus said, “she knew she could sing.”

Rutherford’s been doing it ever since.

She took part in the Children’s All-State Choir as a seventh grader, has been in the KHS select choir four years and has earned medals in solo and ensemble in every event in which she’s participated.

She was one of several Kingfisher choir students to “grow up” with Magnus.

Those students are now seniors. Rutherford, along with Emily Skala and Sicily Leck, have been in the choir since that fifth grade year.

Fellow senior Makenna Whitworth joined when she moved here in the seventh grade and Jonathan Orozco became a member his sophomore year.

Together, they helped lead a KHS choir that swept the judges - or earned superior ratings from all three – in the performance portion of the Class 4A district choral competition Feb. 26 at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva.

It’s the first time KHS has swept the judges at district and it earned the choir a spot in the state competition for a fifth consecutive year.

“When Mrs. Magnus got on the bus to give us the news, she announced we all got straight 1’s,” Leck recalls. A “1” is equivalent to a superior rating.

“All of the seniors cried and yelled ‘We’re going to state our senior year!’ I’ll never forget that.”

Magnus said sweeping the judges was the latest step in building the program. Skala had that sense as well.

“The feeling of qualifying for state gets better by the year, but as a senior, it made me feel like I was a part of something bigger,” she said. “I was ecstatic.”

When Orozco joined, he became a recruiter of sorts for the program as he helped Magnus get more males to participate.

He was part of the select ensemble that also earned a superior for its performance. Leck, Rutherford and Skala were also in the select choir, which is an auditioned ensemble.

“It’s definitely a great feeling when you have worked really hard yourself and as a team,” Orozco said. “It’s just amazing to hear we are going to state once again.”

Rutherford not only qualified with the choir and select ensemble, but also as a soloist, one of three from KHS to complete that sweep this year.

“As a soloist, making state gives me a sense of pride knowing that my hard work for my song preparation and the work I put in over the course of five years of voice lessons paid off,” she said. “As for the group, being a part of victory and being able to celebrate as a team hypes everyone up. It’s so fun to see all the reactions of your fellow teammates when we get the news that our work paid off.”

Magnus said the district performance was the culmination of a process that began for all of them several years ago, herself included.

“These seniors have been with me from the start. They suffered through my first few years of learning how to teach, how to manage a classroom,” Magnus said. “And they’ve been with me for the failures and have rejoiced in all of our successes.

“They did not know what it is like to not go to state. We have always gone since they have been in my high school choir.”

Choral state would have been April 3 at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee. The solo and ensemble competition was scheduled for April 23.

Like every other school-related activity this spring, they were eventually canceled due to the coronavirus.

The seniors - unknowingly - performed together for the last time when they swept the judges in Alva.

“It was really sad to know I won’t ever get to perform again,” Orozco said. “Singing THI Ap to me is everything. I’ve been doing it since I was 6, so to not be able to go to state and show my skill…it was heartbreaking.”

“I am absolutely Please devastated about losing my last opportunity to compete at state,” Skala said. “We, as individuals and as a group, have invested so much time and effort in preparing for this contest. When I found out it would be canceled, I felt the hearts of all who have worked so hard shatter, not only in my school, but in my district, my region and my state.”

Leck wanted to replicate the straight superiors the choir earned at district when it performed at state.

She didn’t get the chance.

“My heart broke into a million pieces,” she said. “Our goal was to get a ‘1’ at state. We worked way too hard for this to happen to us. I’m not talking just about the seniors, but my other classmates as well.”

Rutherford was literally brought to tears.

“I bawled my eyes out, full alligator tears,” she said. “I am still heartbroken that my final year to show everything I’ve learned was taken away.”

State competitions are just a part of what the crop of 2020 seniors don’t get to experience and that’s not lost on the choir students.

“I have been waiting for a really long time to be a senior and get to have senior night for soccer and have my senior prom and feel recognized and know that I finally made it,” Orozco said. “To not be able to have that feeling of joy really does suck.”

While state is a culmination for competition, the choir still had more performances planned. Those, along with other end-ofyear events, are gone.

“We don’t get the traditional choir banquet, the last day of school choir party, our Spring concert where we give Mrs. Magnus our last and best performance,” Leck said.

“And lastly, we didn’t get to make Mrs. Magnus cry tears of happiness and sadness at the same time, which, as seniors, was our main goal to do at the concert.”

This seniors are – literally – leaders for Magnus. Whitworth is the choir president.

“She is a behind-thescenes member,” Magnus said. “If I need something done, she is there. She is a good officer and as president, she ran rehearsals if I was gone.”

Leck, Orozco, Skala and Rutherford are all section leaders.

Leck has been the choir librarian for two years.

“There is a bond with these seniors that I will not have with any other students. We have grown together. They have matured into young adults and I have matured as a teacher,” Magnus said.

“I am really going to miss them. I don’t know what it’s like to come to school and not see them in one of my classes. They are like my own kids.”

And her kids are hurting during a time they should be cherishing…the final months of their senior year.

“My friends, my choir family, we’re all in pain over this. Having these last few months ripped away has crushed me,” Skala said. “I know most of my fellow seniors are feeling the same way. It is devastating, heartbreaking and extremely difficult for everything to end this way.”

Orozco has a message for the KHS underclassmen:

“Seriously have fun and enjoy high school – every second – and make friends as well as do school activities because you never know when a terrible virus could strike and ruin the whole last bit of it.”

That last bit is something Leck – and so many others – wishes she could experience.

“Unless you are a fellow senior or a parent of a senior, you’ll never understand what it’s like to not get your last experiences at high school taken away from you,” she said.

“No matter how bad the senior-itis was, I’d give anything to go back and finish off my senior year like it was supposed to be.”