Attaché Show Choir closes another winning season

By Sherry Lucas

Clinton High’s acclaimed Attaché Show Choir again swept the highest ranks in its spring competitions, bringing their winning streak to an unprecedented thirty-two consecutive Grand Championships that stretch all the way back to 2014. In all those championships, the much-lauded show choir also took top wins in the key areas of Best Music/Vocals and Best Visual/Choreography.

With 46 singer-dancers, 16 musicians in the pit, a 14-member crew, and the show choir’s “The Library”-themed competition show, Attaché dominated competitions in Laurel, Petal and Biloxi. Season highlights also included awards for Outstanding Soloist Lynley Cox at West Jones Invitational and Petal Show Choir Invitational and Outstanding Performer Jaden Kazery at the West Jones Invitational.

In his first year as Attaché director, Chance Anderson, who has performed at Walt Disney World, Opera Orlando and more, said he was particularly impressed by students’ professionalism.

“Seeing it in a high school setting and executed so well and received so well by the students … in rehearsal and at competition and day to day — that has really blown me away.”

“It’s been a very awesome experience, my first year,” said Anderson, who originally hails from Birmingham, Alabama, but grew up all over in a military family. He’d been familiar with Attaché for at least a decade prior, working for Show Choir Nationals in Nashville, where Attaché is the host choir.

“It’s been a great, great experience to be able to do that for over twenty years in a row now,” Attaché Executive Director David Fehr said of their March trip to Nashville as host choir at Nationals at the Grand Ole Opry. He and his wife, Mary, longtime Attaché co-directors, are now co-executive directors of Attaché.

Attaché’s competition show, “The Library,” took audiences on a journey through sections for children’s books, romance, adventure, history and more, with songs to suit each section, huge books as backdrops, wood-grained platforms and a central book with pages that actually flipped.

“You walk around nowadays, and you see kids just looking down at their phones, always,” Anderson said. “I think it was a really cool way to remind people, ‘Look at all the adventures you could go on in books.’” He praised Mary Fehr’s “genius with show design” and strength of the performances.

Attaché capped its competition season with another five performances before its Spring Revue, treating fellow Clinton students, from elementary grades through high school peers, to their song-and-dance fun.

“That doesn’t happen in most places,” David Fehr said. “It’s really unique for Clinton… It’s a wonderful thing to be recognized by your own peers in your own hometown.”
The kids love it, he said. describing a tradition that knits together nostalgia, family, school community and school spirit.

David Fehr attributed Attaché’s long-running success to a culture of professionalism, noting his background in Equity summer stock musical theater, and the professional backgrounds and ties of choreographers Dexter Bishop, Kellis Oldenburg and April James, pit director Robert Allen, crew director Deborah Morgan and show choir director Anderson.

“We have a passion that came from the professional world and now is back in the educational world. I think that’s what helps keep us unique. And, of course, you can’t say enough about the kids, and just the tradition and the love of performing.” The tradition has been building since Attaché founding director Winona Costello’s time.

Fall and Spring Revues always bring back tons of alums.

“They had fun when they did it, and we want to make sure everybody keeps having fun.” All the hard work and attention to detail fold right in with that quest.”

“When you’re good,” David Fehr said, “it’s even more fun.”

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