Colorful display of Trojan talent

By Catherine Odson, catherineodson@miconews.com

Trojan Elementary School students Larissa Harrison, Micayla Hoskins and Megan Higdon dance along to “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al during the school’s talent show Friday afternoon. Students not only sang and danced during the show, but they also showcased basketball skills, performed tumbling routines and broke out some jokes. (Catherine Odson / catherineodson@miconews.com)

As the first act in the Trojan Elementary School talent show came to a close Friday afternoon, the chorus of Taylor Swift’s “Our Song” did the same, “… asking God if he could play it again.”

On the side of the stage, principal Jeff White and counselor Wayne Hodgson did play it again — four more times.

By the end of the show, the first-graders in the front rows of the audience were getting pretty good at singing along with the popular song.

“Every year there’s always one song that a lot of kids sing,” said fourth-grade teacher Lori Johnson, who organized the show with Hodgson. It was the eighth or ninth year of the annual show, she said.

Sixty-four rising stars performed at the show with acts ranging from singing and dancing to basketball tricks and comedy routines. One duo broke into a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants songs to a screaming ovation. A guitar soloist got a similar introduction for his performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The 36 acts of fourth- and fifth-graders were chosen through tryouts this year, Johnson said.

Since then, they spent hours practicing whenever they could, which usually meant during recess and before school in various classrooms, Johnson said.

“Practice makes perfect,” Johnson said after a dance to “Surfin’ Safari.”

With the show over, the teachers will no longer have to share their rooms with renditions of pop and country songs alike.

“Finally, we don’t have to listen to that in our rooms in the mornings before school,” Johnson said after a group dance to Avril Lavigne’s hit “Sk8ter Boi.”