Not many high school mixed choirs can say that they have been given the opportunity to sing with rock stars, but the George Ranch chorale has lived the dream that so many choirs aspire to achieve. Through a contest on a local Houston radio station, the George Ranch chorale won the honor to sing with the 1980s hit band, Foreigner, and perform their hit song, “I Want To Know What Love Is”.

Many different school choirs submitted their video to 93.7 The Arrow’s website and polls were opened on the site.

“When they called they said that we had a landslide vote, even against all the really good choirs that we thought we weren’t going to win against,” junior Meaghan Veazey said. The choir sang with Foreigner later on in September.

George Ranch’s principal Mrs. Haack was fully supportive of the choir and encouraged the student body to go online and vote for their video. Mrs. Haack would come over the announcements and remind the students to aid the vocalists by voting for the best choir online which, of course, was George Ranch High School’s chorale.

The George Ranch choir had no idea that there was even a small chance that they would actually win. They heard about the contest shortly before the deadline was due and had little time to prepare for the video before uploading it to The Arrow’s site.

“We were in total disbelief,” senior James Juat said. “We didn’t even see it coming; we thought some of the other schools probably had a better chance.”

The choir and Mr. Cuellar were thrown for a loop when the call from the radio station informed the nervous choir of their win.

“Everybody jumped and everybody shirts [were] flying up and down and I was screaming,” senior Abby Gonzalez said.

The chorale and Mr. Cuellar were over the moon and couldn’t wait to perform with Foreigner. In the week before the concert, the choir and the school were featured on local Fox News.  “My mom got a bunch of calls saying ‘hey, Cydnee is on the news,’” senior Cydnee Haynes said.

Senior Amara Uzoka said it was really cool to be on the news that night, but the choir did not have much time to prepare. Amara Uzoka says that the preparation was “kind of fast moving, but enjoyable at the same time.” The choir was “pumped,” Senior Bryan Kelly said, and the students backstage were jumping on their toes with the anticipation of going out onto the stage.

While they were singing Foreigner’s song “I Want To Know What Love Is”, the students were swaying with the band and singing their hearts out. Abby Gonzales was chosen to come out to the forefront of the rotating stage to strum one of the guitarist’s instruments for the last bit of the song.

Afterwards, outside of the stadium, Mrs. Respondek asked how the choir was feeling and how the experience was. The hyped up choir whooped and hollered in response. Before leaving, the choir sang “We are George Ranch” showing off their school spirit and started their road back home.

Singing with Foreigner was an amazing opportunity for the George Ranch mixed choir, and they without a doubt will have many more amazing opportuntities to come.