Pals Club shows off talents
CHERYL SCHWEIZER | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 1 month AGO
The Pals Club (and a Moses Lake High School volunteer) got down with a hip-hop number to ‘Watch Me’ during the annual Pals Club talent show Friday.
Senior Reporter Cheryl Schweizer is a journalist with more than 30 years of experience serving small communities in the Pacific Northwest. She began her post-high-school education at Treasure Valley Community College and enerned her journalism degree at Oregon State University. After working for multiple publications, she has settled down at the Columbia Basin Herald and has been a staple of the newsroom for more than a decade. Schweizer’s dedication to her communities and profession has earned her the nickname “The Baroness of Bylines.” She covers a variety of beats including health, business and various municipalities. | May 3, 2016 6:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — A few Moses Lake High School students walked up to the door of the MLHS theater and tried to get in, but they couldn’t. The theater was already packed.
Of course the theater was full. It was the Pals Club talent show.
The Pals Club (the life skills class) members usually fill the theater when it’s time to show off their talents to their fellow MLHS students. The students practice for about a month, and then show off their new skills in two performances, one for fellow students, a second for family, friends and district patrons.
This is the fifth all-Pals Club talent show, which grew out of the cancellation of the all-school talent show. Chris Pine, who’s in the Pals Club, had earned a spot in the school talent show and was very disappointed in its cancellation, so the club and its teachers decided to put on their own show.
Chris was on stage Friday, playing the piano, choosing part of a Mozart composition. Chris, Chazz Johnson and Matthew Zavala told jokes. Chazz said the students have to practice their routines — a lot — but it’s fun to perform. It’s really fun to make people laugh, Chazz said.
“I made everybody laugh,” Matthew said. It’s his first talent show, but it was just fun. “It’s not scary at all,” he said.
Juan Ruiz is a veteran of the talent show, and if it used to be scary, it’s not anymore. “It’s pretty fun,” he said. Juan was in the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” skit and he was among the Pals dancing to the song “Watch Me.”
Pretty much everybody in the Pals Club dances, liked the big number “Ghostbusters.” Many of the girls and a couple of the boys danced to “Cheerleader.” The whole Pals Club was on stage, and was joined by students from the MLHS choir class, for the finale, their rendition of “I Believe.”
Pals Club members did solo dances and songs, and the seniors in the club did their own number to the song “I’ll Be There for You.”
The Pals Club also gets some help from its friends; fellow MLHS students volunteer to help the Pals during their routines and in setting up and taking down equipment. And the packed gym rang with cheers and shouts of encouragement and applause.
Instructor Jill Allyn said in an earlier interview the talent show is about more than just the practice and the performance. The Pals learn skills that help them after they leave school, she said.
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