Flight Showchoir to end after five seasons
March 6, 2019
ICT Flight Showchoir, Wichita’s first competitive show choir, will be discontinuing its program after completing their fifth season.
Director Kristina Sims said she started Flight because she wanted to give kids in Wichita an opportunity to be involved in the arts in a way they hadn’t experienced before. She had friends in the show choir circuit who encouraged her to try it out. Sims gave it a try and it turned out well the first year, so she continued to keep it going.
Senior Hailey Beckmann has been a part of Flight for four years. Beckmann said that when she first joined Flight, she was really nervous and self-conscious about her dancing, but Kristina Sims made her grow into a performer.
“In eighth grade my middle school choir teacher, Karen Sims, advertised Flight Jr. which is like a junior varsity group of Flight and that got me really interested,” Beckmann said. “I joined Flight Jr. then auditioned for Kristina Sims and made it in.”
Flight’s final competition, the Lewis Central Clash of the Titans Grand Champion, was on March 2 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The team one several awards at the competition, including best male soloist, best male performer, best female performer and best vocals.
“The last competition I thought was really great for us,” Cayd Barragan said. “We ended up getting grand champion for the first time ever in Flight, and that was a great experience because it was our last competition ever and to get that was so fun and amazing, and that brought us together even closer as a team and as a family.”
Although Flight will no longer be a competitive team, there will still be holding organization events like master classes and Elevate, a summer camp for grades three through eight on June 3-7.
Flight also has a few more performances before they are officially done for the season. They will be performing at Bradley Fair the last week of May. On the first weekend of June, Flight is also doing an alumni show in which they will be reviving some numbers from each of the five years that they have been in existence.
