Local youth croon holiday tunes

Two concerts and an art auction showcased the talents of local youth this week.

Student musicians from Stikine Middle School and Wrangell High School participated in the joint high school and middle school concert Dec. 11 in the high school commons. Elementary school students sang and performed at the elementary school concert Dec. 12 in the elementary school gym.

The older students' concert also included – for the first time ever – an auction of dozens of objets d'art produced by students and one teacher at the high school. The silent auction eventually raised about $1,200, said high school art teacher Anne Luetkemeyer. Art students, who work on projects all year, were instructed to select only one piece for the auction, Luetkemeyer said. Proceeds from the auction would fund art scholarships and contribute some money toward purchasing a new kiln, which the high school needs, Luetkemeyer said.

The scholarships portion of the funding will defray some travel expenses for students who wish to participate in art festivals and other events away from Wrangell, Luetkemeyer added. Some students have been unable to attend past art-centric events because of sports travel obligations or other financial obstacles, she said.

"By April they're a little traveled out," she said. "It's nice for me to be able to say 'Don't worry about it, you're going.'"

The auction also showed students a bit of the rubber meeting the road between art and commerce, Luetkemeyer added.

"It's like how do you put a price on it?" she said. When she was an artist, she "loved being in shows where I didn't have to sell anything. When I had to sell it, it was really difficult."

At least one young artist's creation ended up in a bidding war. Junior Baylee Thrush's decorated bowl featuring a moose, bear, wolf and deer on the outside and crab, salmon, jellyfish, and sand dollar on the inside eventually sold for $50.

"I decided I wanted to do something different this year," she said, of the bowl.

The bowl took her two to three classes to make, Thrush estimated. She shaped the clay from a non-descript lump into the finished product on a potter's wheel.

The busiest person over the course of these events was probably Tasha Morse, the school system's lone music teacher. After weeks of practice and effort, her concerts went off without a hitch.

"This went really well," she said.

Elementary school students have been working on their numbers since October, she said. When the second grade students started making their maracas for their multi-cultural Christmas theme, they hit several snags with the ingredients for the paper mâché. Eventually, Morse and her husband ended up making all the maracas by themselves.

Her mother-in-law, Karen Morse, even got drafted to play the piano for the elementary school concert at the last moment.

"This is a really busy time," she said.