Jayhawk elementary's program a throwback to the '50s

Reid Johnson is the pop star in "Twang that Thing." (Photos by Roger Sims / Linn County Journal)

By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com

In a program of featuring singing, clapping and dancing, the 90 students of Jayhawk Elementary School’s fourth and fifth grades took their appreciative audience on a trip in a musical time machine during a vocal concert on Thursday, March 27.

Under the direction of teacher Amanda Johnson, the students’ performance erased seven decades and put their audience firmly in a time of sock hops, poodle skirts, plain white t-shirts and jeans in the program “Back to the Fifties.”

Cora Collette and Barett Eastwood are partners in one of several dance numbers.

With two groups of singers on either side of the stage, students rotated onto the stage and even onto the floor to perform, giving 

The songs included  the classic “All Shook Up;” “Ode to the Treble Clef,” a song paying tribute to the top bar of the musical score; “Twang that Thang,” a nod to an Elvis-like figure in a glittering gold jacket and his guitar; and “Cranberries Forever,” a silly food song with a beat catchy enough to dance to.

Haizley Dishman, Kendall Antrim and Avah Wood and Sutton Seabolt perform in the "Ode to the Treble Clef."

The music was so catchy that this little guy broke into a spontaneous dance during the performance.

This number required students to keep time by throwing balls up in the air to a prescribed height.