Day after boy is slain, shaken schoolmates triumph at choral contest
By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff | May 13, 2009
It was the kind of tragedy no school should have to endure. Students - young children, really - wept in the hallways Thursday as word swept through the Warren-Prescott School in Charlestown that an eighth-grader, Soheil Turner, was dead, shot that morning as he waited for his bus.
So it felt strange and not quite right the next morning as members of the school choir boarded a bus for a statewide singing contest and a trip to an amusement park. Some of the students looked sad and uncertain.
Their music teacher, Olivia Thompson, felt unsettled, too. But she offered words of reassurance: It's OK to be sad, but it's also OK to have fun.
"The music you're making is part of what's good in the world, and it's important to keep doing that," Thompson told them.
What happened later that day stunned the students, their teacher, and the school. The fledgling choir from Charlestown, the only elementary school singing group in the competition, earned the highest point total, beating a roster of larger, better-established choruses from middle and high schools. They did it with a heartfelt rendition of "What a Wonderful World," on a day that, as sixth-grader Mary Evers later said, didn't feel wonderful at all.
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"That's pretty amazing, winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Ironically, his biggest accomplishment as president so far ... winning the Nobel Peace Prize." ~~ Jay Leno
ACF......like playing Twister with amputees.
ACF......like playing Twister with amputees.
