Noxon students named to Honor Choir

NOXON – Two Noxon High School students were selected to sing in the Montana State University’s Honor Choir, joining high schoolers from around the state at the Missoula campus.

Juniors Clay King and Hilary VanVleet went to Missoula for the show during the last weekend in January. According to Sari MacArthur, music teacher at Noxon, the program was made up of some of the top singers around the state. Two students were selected from each school that participated.

King and VanVleet performed in two different choirs, a mixed choir and an all female one. King performed in the mixed choir, but VanVleet sang in both. Each choir sang six songs. 

MacArthur is very proud of her students. She said this was their first year participating in an Honor Choir and it said a lot about their program to be selected. The Noxon music program has been seeing many improvements and a rise kind of program being offered.

It was also recalled it was fairly recent that the program had very many people in it, let alone anyone good enough for the Honor Choir.

“It says a lot for our program and how our program’s growing and getting to do these above and beyond type programs that are available out there,” MacArthur said. 

She said they loved the experience. She said MSU showcased it around the various choirs they offer as a way of promoting the school for when the students graduate high school. 

“It was a really fun time,” MacArthur said. “Especially for my students, it’s a really great thing to get this thing that’s a mass choir like that since we don’t have the numbers in our school to have a choir of that volume and mass.”

According to their teacher, the pair were the only students from Sanders County in the Honor Choir. She said she did not see any students or representatives from the county’s other schools at the time.