“Midwest Cup, that’s what’s up!” Saturday, January 12 marked the beginning of Lincoln East’s show choir season. The school’s three show choir groups arrived at the Westbrook Music Building at 6:45 AM, anxious to start their first competition day. 16 groups would compete for the title of the Midwest Cup grand champion at the Lied Center in downtown Lincoln. The day started off much earlier than 6:45, as students woke up around 4:30 to do highly detailed hair and makeup, and of course, check LPS for updates on the weather.

Each show choir competition requires dedication from the students to cheer on fellow team members in what they call “cheer block,” which is put into effect right before the school’s group performs. The first group of the day was Lincoln East Elegance, an all girls varsity group, sharing their theme of girl power in the well-known figure, Rosie the Riveter. Their performance at 8:35 was amazing, especially given how early it was in the morning. Later in the day, the group won first place in their division!

Next from East, performing at 10:15, was Lincoln East Elevation, a mixed prep group, made up of freshman through seniors. Elevation’s theme for the 2019 season is flight. Competing against three other groups, the group did extremely well given their competition. Elevation received fourth place in the prep division.

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East's mixed varsity group, Express, finished third at the Midwest Cup.

The last group from East to perform was Express, the mixed varsity group. Express’s theme this year is space, including the well known song, Rocket Man, and many show choir members’ favorite, Space Cowboy. The varsity group performed at 3:00, and they were a literal show stopper. Judges weren’t set and didn’t tell anyone, so Express had to stop halfway through their opener and start their show again. Luckily this little mishap didn’t affect the group, as they were one of the six groups to make finals.

Finals began at 7:00, with Express being the fourth group to perform. Fortunately, this performance went much smoother. Final awards were kind to Express. Urbandale Studio 2019 from Iowa won grand champion, Southwest received first runner-up, and finally awarding Express third place. Although East would have loved to beat Southwest, Express and the other groups are still happy with the results. However, they still have a lot of work to put in this week for the coming competition. All three groups are looking forward to competing at Ralston Ramageddon on January 19!