To the editor:

The Dowagiac Music Department would like to thank all of the community members that helped to make the Young American Workshop such a success!

As many of you may remember, Dowagiac was the 19th performance on the Young Americans Midwestern tour and a wonderful grand finale!

The Dowagiac Performing Arts Center under the leadership of Jay Mayberry provided the perfect environment for an electric night of entertainment and lifelong memories.

More than 210 Dowagiac students from grades 412 were skillfully guided by the 52 visiting Young Americans (hailing from all parts of the U.S.) for the 2 1/2-day event.

This educational outreach experience takes the participants through a series of classes designed to strengthen character through the common denominator of music.

Experiences included: theater/stage techniques, vocal pedagogy, dance, sound techniques, audition techniques, visual arts and prose.

The first half of the evening’s performance was offered as a “thank you” from the Young Americans as they performed for us, demonstrating their depth of talent representing a wide variety of musical styles from Broadway and pop to gospel!

The second half of the evening the audience was treated to all 260+ performers on the stage singing, dancing, drawing and reading their original prose!

The culmination of the performance was The Lion King featuring Dowagiac’s own Young American Bill Davis.

With any event of this magnitude we owe a great debt to the behind the scenes organizations, businesses and community members.

The first of which is the St. Deny Foundation for its generous financial support without which we would not have been able to make this event affordable for our students.

We also thank the Junior Arts Club, Lyons Club, Beta Sigma, Kappa Beta, Family Center, Optimist Club, Laureate Beta, Walthers Farms, Hillside Orchards, Family Fare, Harding’s, Steinman Shell, Five-Mile Marathon, McDonald’s and Save A Lot.

Special thanks go to the Band Boosters and Positively Dance.

Please accept our apologies if we inadvertently left anyone off the list!             We also need to recognize all of the host families and Dowagiac Union School District staff who sponsored students, helped with food, transportation, lodging and moral support.

Without all of you, none of this would have became reality.

The Fine Arts Boosters under the leadership of Sharon Harnden and Carol Novak were always available with their time, energy and support throughout this event.

Dowagiac is fortunate to have an organization that supports our students and can be counted on to help out in more ways than we could ever mention!

Music brings people together for constructive purposes: teamwork, respect, accomplishment, beauty, caring and self-discipline.

The Young Americans emphasize the study of music to bring good values into place and help to balance the negative influences in today’s world.

With this in mind, we would like to thank the Dowagiac school district and Dowagiac school board for supporting our students as we explore how music and the love of performing can shape lives!

Jeff Robinson

Dowagiac Schools

6-12 Vocal Music