First off please give a Region 11 welcome to our Contest newbies, Sarah Harris (baritone), Andrea Heisser (lead), and Linda Somdal (lead). We’re so glad to have them in our chorus.

Our holiday show, The Gift of Music, was a big success with an enthusiastic audience. Invited holiday guest singers included some original AHH! charter members who made it a holiday treat. We had 5 chorus quartets performing for the first time and they did a wonderful job. Another chorus quartet, Pipe Dreams, featured two Region 11 management team members, Monica Tautkus and Debbie Curtis, performing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”.

Our annual retreat with fabulous coaches Jeff and Patty Baker was intense, exhilarating, and hilarious. Huge thanks and our hearts go out to them!

AHH! recently hired barbershop chorus website specialists, ConnectedSound.com, to update our website. We highly recommend this Region 11-based service. Please check us out at www.ahhchorus.net and sign our guest book. We were able to use the Singing Valentine feature of the website to help make the event a big success.

AHH! sponsored our first YWIH event "Happenin' Harmony" in February at Newbury Park High School with Guest Clinician Jennifer Edwards from Ohio - Fabulous Lead of our new Queens -- Moxie Ladies! It was also a treat to have Hypnotic quartet with us for the day and headlining the evening show. The theme for the day was "Grease... is the word" with fun songs from the 50's including "Sh-Boom", "We Go Together" and a combined finale of the Beatles favorite "In My Life".

As always we know this will be an exciting fun filled competition and we wish all the competitors the best with extra special wishes to quartets from AHH!: Spirit (Catherine), and our current Region 11 2008 Champions!, Pipe Dreams (Monica), Cachet (Sally) and Many Happy Returns (Tina, Diane L. & Kathie E).

California Heartland Chorus has been quite busy this year. Our Cabaret show in September was loads of fun, after all, “Life is a Cabaret.” Our audience thoroughly enjoyed our show and the variety of food we offered. In October, we had our fundraiser at Sweet Tomatoes (more fun and food). November started off with Colleen Wilson coaching us and ended with a performance in downtown Clovis to kick off their Christmas shopping season. We had our usual Christmas performances in December at Christmas Tree Lane, Sierra Vista Mall, Fig Garden Village, Bel Haven Care facility, as well as our annual “Christmas through the Ages” show and chorus Christmas party.

After taking two weeks off over the holidays, we returned in January with gusto, eager to face the new year. We began with a wonderful two-day coaching session with Sharon Babb, one new member – Barbara Sand – and several prospective members. During February, we sang our hearts out to all those lovers in the community with our Singing Valentines. As we fine-tuned our package for competition, Jim Turnmire gave us some final tweaks to enhance our performance.

We wish the best of luck to all quartets and choruses in Region 11. Just remember to have fun and “break a lip.” – Lorene Isaacs

Word has it that we missed the last edition of News@11 - and everyone knows how hard it is to play "catch-up". We do need to mention the wonderful coaching of Peggy Gram, and how much we got from her, and a very successful Flag Day performance at the new Henderson Events Plaza amphitheater – both highlights we can't overlook.

We have continued to work with the Desert Harmony women's chorus at Del Sol High School. Their director, Jay Daugherty, made attendance at one of our rehearsals a requirement, but these girls are so enthusiastic that they have even formed a couple of quartets. Some of our members made poncho-type scarves for the girls to vary their black dresses, and then the chorus wore matching scarves for a joint performance in November.

In December we did a well-attended Holiday performance at Cheyenne High School. This is where our own director, Jim Halvorson, spends his days as Choral director, so we looked forward to sharing the stage with the Cheyenne High Madrigal Chorus. This is a small, but mighty, group that we are sure will grow with Jim's leadership.

With the holidays over, it's back to work in preparation for Nashville, so January was time for our annual retreat with Jim Arns and Renee Porzal. As usual, words fail to describe what they do for us, except, maybe, WOW!!!!

On February 28, we performed our "Spring Harmony" show at the Las Vegas Academy For Performing Arts. This was the first of a series of four concerts we hope to able to perform this year. Still in the planning stage, so stay tuned!

Some of our members have suffered many trials and tribulations over this time period – there have been tears of sadness and joy; loved ones lost, babies born, members ill or injured. We keep them all in our prayers and hearts.

We wish everyone a happy contest experience, and hearty congratulations to the winners! – Betty Campbell

The Celebration continues on the beautiful Central California Coast. The euphoria of winning Most Improved and First Place Small Chorus at contest last March has lingered all year but rest on our laurels we have not. Donning our purple-ribboned medals at rehearsals serves as a reminder of how much work it took to earn them and how important it is to keep that momentum and quest for excellence going.

In keeping with forward momentum and harmony, we were honored in November to have a Strategic Planning day facilitated by our esteemed International board member, Patty Cobb Baker. Patty is both so smart and darling, she helped us to learn a lot about ourselves, focus on a clear direction and have a blast doing it!

January brought our annual retreat and a truly exceptional coach some of you may have heard of from Colorado, Sharon Babb! Sharon's credentials are a mile long but include Master Faculty, Certified Sound Judge, Judge Specialist-Sound and International Board of Directors. She kept us both on our toes and on our notes, growing our sound and our skills with finesse in just two short days...WOW, what an experience. Now if we can just remember it all for 6 minutes!

We're tickled PINK that our small chorus has three quartets entering the competition; Coastal Blend, The Bebop Girls and Rio! The Bebops Girls will be returning for their encore performance after their first competition last year and will be joined by Coastal Blend's first go at the big contest stage! Rio will be there, too, with their new beautiful baritone, Laura Tripp. Joining us on stage this year will be our 8 new members, Lois Harvey, Tricia Borgardt, Stephanie Brazil, Debi Chew, Pam Burden, Kitty Connolly, Maryann Gonzalez and Michelle Potts. Four of the new members are seasoned Sweet Adelines that we welcome back to the organization.

We wish all of you a joyous contest experience. Win or lose, we are blessed to be so united in harmony. – Cindy McBurney

My how the time has flown since we were on the beautiful beaches of Hawaii. Channelaire members were so proud to have the opportunity to, once again, represent this great region and to share the spotlight with Voices Unlimited. Our heartfelt thanks to all who were there to cheer us on. Our friends from Japan attended in great numbers and invited us to sing with them on the International stage. What a thrill renewing our friendships with those specials ladies from our journey to their beautiful country in 2007.

Special thanks to our coaches who helped on our recent journey back to regional competition: Betty Clipman, Jeff and Patty Baker, Diane Porsch, Lori DeHoog, and our own Judy Ashmore.

We’ve recently moved to a new rehearsal location in Ventura. We are now at the Adult Education Center at 5200 Valentine Road. Stop in and visit if you’re in the area … we’d love to see you!

Our Performance Team had many performances over the holidays, including the opportunity to sing at Universal City Walk. Quite an experience with more than enough of us to fit on the “tiny” risers on the “tiny” stage!  Somehow we managed quite nicely.

Competing with us for the very first time this weekend will be former San Diego Chorus gold medalist, Banks Pecht, a delightful addition to our baritone section!

Channelaire is proud to have 3 members of our chorus now working on the Regional Management Team. Mary Ashford is Region 11’s new Directors’ Coordinator, joining Jolene Forzetting (Events) and Debbie Curtis (Marketing) on the team. Thank you, ladies, for your willingness to work on behalf of the region.

We wish the best of luck to our SIX competing quartets this weekend, and to Shimmer! who will be mic testing. We also send warm wishes to our dual members in South Valley Sound – Mary Ashford, Lee Hays, Elayne Rich, and Jolene Forzetting. And “go get ‘em” to our Region 21 dual members, Lee Hays and Debbie Curtis, who will compete with Harborlites in April. – Linda Ragsdale

Summer officially ended with a “Smokin’ Hot Beach Bonfire” to celebrate the birthday of our wonderful master director, Linda Kelly. She’ll never forget the “singing cowboy” - a gift from her chorus members!

On September 11, we sang at one of the largest televised Patriot Day memorials with an emotional performance of “Stars and Striped Forever” as hundreds of bikers rolled into Long Beach, the final destination of the “Remember 911 Ride”.

Our show this year, “Hollywood Canteen”, featured wonderful specialty acts: Ready, Willing, and Mabel, The Denny Goodman Orchestra (self proclaimed as “the World’s Worst Big Band”) and Swing Dancers. A portion of our proceeds from the show was donated to the Bob Hope USO at LAX. 

We’ve joined up with our “sister chorus” for lots of fun! (L.A. South Towns, Caroline McLean, Director) ~ the “Nervous Novice Quartet” competition, South Bay Coastliners celebration aboard the “Lane Victory”, the “Hollywood Canteen” and LASTS 50th anniversary show, “Viva LASTS Vegas”.

GSC had a unique opportunity to demonstrate our craft to the music majors at CSULB. The “Barbershop Club” has been officially chartered on campus with GSC tenor Kim Baker as president and GSC bass, Margaret Brewer, as the faculty advisor!

“Sing for the Holidays” attracted twenty women from the community who joined us to learn our seasonal repertoire and perform in our holiday show. 

The “Beach Girls” are blessed with expert coaches, too! Connie Noble (2002 Fanatix Quartet, et al) and the infamous Jim Arns (2008 1st International Chorus, Melodeers). Jim was more than happy to fly in from the “17 below freezing” temperature in Chicago to coach us in sunny SoCal! 

At our retreat, Jim played along with the theme as “the only boy at Golden Sands High School who single-handedly won the international football championship game”. Jim is pictured here with our “school mascot” and the “Fighting Green Grunion Marching Band” (aka High-Tide Quartet)

 We are having so much fun! – Lillian Zellmer

February brought singing Valentines with good participation and community response. It's always fun to see the surprised faces of the Valentine recipients. As competition drew nearer, the pace quickened appreciatively---costume fittings and checks, shoe ordering (and complaining), choreography rehearsals, taping, taping, taping, and taping again.

Now competition has arrived and we are ready! We wish all the quartets and choruses the best of luck. See you in the hallways!
– Ann Layton, HSC

October 2008 marked the 50th Anniversary of the L.A. South Towns Show Chorus and we’ve been celebrating this event in style! Not only was this a milestone for the chorus, but our very own Queen and charter member, Jan Wyckoff, received her 50-year award this year.

Our first official celebration was held in October when we invited all of our friends and family members for a ‘50’s-style ice cream social. Our Annual Show, “Viva LASTS Vegas,” was a sell-out smash hit! Our headline quartet, Sirens, had the crowd on their feet and the cast on the floor (you had to be there). We can’t thank our friends from the Golden Sands Chorus enough for their heartwarming patriotic package and for the camaraderie and fun we continue to share with them. The Coastliners added their usual flair and Ready Willing & Mabel even made a cameo appearance. The wee dancers from the Kelly School of Irish Dance stole the show, feet a’flailin’ and curls a’bobbin’. The grand finale for our Golden Anniversary show had the curtain opening to reveal our glittery gold outfits with a large “50” emblazoned on the backdrop, thanks to our ever creative Marge McKarns. Neither of these grand events would have been possible without our ingenious Caroline McLean who always puts the “Show” in Show Chorus with style and grace.

We’re pleased to introduce our newest bass, Vicky Breese, and looking forward to seeing you all in Bakersfield! – Lee Ann Lohran

Pacific Horizon Chorus has been busy with holiday and Valentine's Day performances, along with other noteworthy fundraising activities. A special thank you to the Tri City Sound Chorus for inviting us to join them at their Christmas show as their guests.

We welcomed new member Thelma Ervine in January, and after many years of meeting at the SLO Adult School, we changed our rehearsal location to near-by Unity Church.

In October Mary Ashford coached us and gave us plenty of new ideas for our contest songs. Judy Ashmore arrived in early January to coach individual sections and watched as we noticeably improved! By the time you read this, our retreat will be history, and our thanks go to Laura Pallas and Lisa Kneebone for a great weekend of high class coaching. We've had some of the finest! Our thanks for Marguerite and Barbara for the coordination of lodging and food.

You will see some of our faces onstage this year with our friends of Tri City Sound, and we welcome a number of their members to our contest performance in a dual-membership plan. It has been fun learning their music and an honor to welcome their singers to our chorus for contest. Our thanks to Kim and Barbara, directors!

All our best to all quartets and choruses this weekend! – Alison Drake

And the river just keeps rollin’ along. Despite member illnesses, and losing one of our leads – Teri Hutchison – who moved down south to be with her kids, we also gained a couple of great voices, including our new lead, Laurence Walsh!

Then began our round of holiday events starting with a sing out at the Magnolia Park Open House, followed by our annual sing-outs at four cerebral palsy homes in the area. We joined the Burbank Chamber of Commerce and our double quartet, A La Carte, sang at a Chamber luncheon. RiverOaks was on TV at the lighting of the Toluca Lake Christmas tree with popular weatherman Fritz Coleman – plus we were hired to carol at eight different stores in the area! We had our annual holiday party at Kelly’s and we all gathered at Micki’s house to deliver our second annual Holiday Singing Telegrams – and eat, of course, our second favorite activity. In January, we were honored to have coaching by both Dave Tautkus and Karen Laderman as we started preparing in earnest for competition. And A La Carte was honored to perform at the West Coast Inaugural ceremony for Obama! Whew!

We wish all the choruses and quartets to have fun, break a lip and ring those chords at contest! – Katy Theodore

First of all, we want to congratulate Channelaire, Voices Unlimited, Shimmer! and Spirit for their outstanding appearances at International in Hawaii. Bravo Region 11!

Yes. Yes. We admit it. We'll be 60-years old this summer. We hope you will celebrate with us! (More on this event at a later date.) And although we are the oldest Sweet Adelines chapter west of the Rocky Mountains, we keep our spirit young by adding vibrant and versatile new members. For their very first Region 11 competition weekend, welcome our two new basses, Alison Widdoes and Mary Allwright, and our two new tenors, Kate Kohler and Jackie Schneider.

We were saddened by the passing last fall of our delightful bass, Susan Deadrick and we were honored to sing at her memorial service.

To discover great new singers was our goal when we hosted Singers Night Out on Oct. 28. We invited women singers in the Los Angeles area to attend our rehearsal, learn about barbershop singing and socialize with our members. We also achieved publicity and pleasure when we were the featured chorus at Santa Monica's Main Street tree lighting ceremony in December. After a stage performance, we split into "two choruses" and serenaded the holiday shoppers. Another holiday performance that touched our hearts was singing at the Fireside Nursing Home in Santa Monica. By the way, most of you know our tenor, Tove Hoch. If you see her this weekend, as her about her stellar "horse solo" in Sleigh Ride!

There must be love in the Santa Monica air. We now have three new brides, Melanie Keller-Hoffman, Amanda Streit Simon, and Jonni Dee Wood and one newly engaged, Judy Hatch. Yea! More chorus husbands!

We welcomed our fabulous coach, Lori Lyford, with an earthquake Friday, January 23 and continued to be moved by her guidance during a most memorable and magical Malibu Retreat Weekend. Thanks, Lori! Coach Mark Hale visited us in February and as always put the perfect finishing touches on our package. Thanks, Mark!

Good luck to every chorus, every quartet and especially to our competing chorus quartets: Cachet, Ooh La La and Sirens. TA DA! It's Region 11 competition weekend! Have fun, everyone! – Patti Nugent

Southland Harmony Chorus is very happy to report wonderful growth this year. We have added seven new members! Some of the brand new Sweet Adelines competing with us this year are: Natasha Raska and Carolyn Yoshida. Luanne Sirag, another brand new Sweet Adeline could not compete with us because of the birth of a grandchild. We wish her the best in her travels to North Carolina. The other new members competing with us are Nancy Gutierrez, Karen Isom, Sue Miles, and Nancy Santo.

MoJoDeBo, our own quartet, is competing. The chorus is very proud of them and wishes them the best!

We have had a great time with our activities: a fabulous show on October 11, performances throughout the holidays, singing Christmas cards, Christmas party, and regular rehearsals. Our on-going membership drive has really helped us grow, and we are thrilled with our “new chorus”.

Our next big event will be a Patriotic show in June - details later.

We are proud to be “Jim’s Gems”! – Gail Barrena

South Valley Sound has had another oo-WONDERFUL year! We are also celebrating our 8th year with our fabulous co-directors, Mary Ashford and Lee Hays. We are very proud of our international competitors from Hawaii including Shimmer!, Mary Ashford, Jolene Forzetting, Lee Hays, and Elayne Rich with Channelaire, Brenda Garnas with Voices Unlimited and Lee Hays with outgoing champions, Harborlites. We are so very proud of Patty Cobb Baker, our coach and tenor of Shimmer!, on her appointment to the International Board and Mary Ashford on her appointment to the RMT as Directors’ Coordinator.

During the past year the South Valley Sound Chorus has embraced the philosophy of "The Magic of Thinking Big”. To keep the chorus and our mission on track, we enlisted the talents of the fabulously talented Patty “Vocal Gold” Baker, Marge Bailey, Music Judge, Marcia Pinvidic, Expression Judge and performance prep expert, the zany Lisa Kneebone, showmanship, and Judy "ears of a bat" Ashmore, Sound Judge and phenomenal riser-stacking expert.

During the summer the chorus moved to a new rehearsal facility that we are enjoying very much. In October, the chorus and Sound Solution sang at the wedding of our own Earlene “Sweet Adeline” Smith. South Valley Sound had the wonderful opportunity of returning to Taft Correctional Institution to spread holiday cheer. This year was extra special as we sang Feliz Navidad and Noche de Paz en espanol and we featured the bilingual emcee talents of our own Elizabeth Lopez, a new lead with the chorus. With almost three years of "Shop & Sing" under our belts and the talents of Tamara Shimmin, we have continued to increase our membership. Our newest members include Susan Johnson, Korrin Koras, Marion Smith, Donna Beale and Elizabeth Lopez. We are also thrilled that Toni Salie has returned to sing with the chorus. We are also very proud of Paige Willis and Bethany Pomroy. Both are very active in other singing organizations and we are very fortunate to have these two young and very talented singers, who have the whole world in front of them, singing on the risers with us every week.

We are looking forward to seeing all you at competition and wish good luck to all the competitors, especially to our two competing quartets, Sound Solution and Unleashed and to this year’s mic testers Shimmer! And to our dual members, Mary Ashford, Jolene Forzetting, Lee Hays and Elayne Rich with Channelaire.

Our chorus was privileged to have the Rio Quartet coach us last Fall. We were delighted to have Lisa Kneebone and Laura Pallas coach us last month. We are blessed in this Region and appreciate having so many talented and professional resources available to us to foster our musical growth.

Our Christmas season was full of performances, culminating with our Annual Friends and Family Show. We had nine guest singers from the community join us on the risers. We were also happy to welcome the Pacific Horizon Chorus from San Luis Obispo, who made our evening ever so much more special.

We sang in January for the Installation of new officers at the Mussell Senior Center in Santa Maria, and in February for the Calvary Baptist Church in Lompoc. Our Singing Valentines were a big hit and a successful fundraiser.

We are looking forward to this weekend's Contest and wish all the best to the competitors. – Lyndell Penney

In the past eight months, Verdugo Hills Showtime Chorus has been very busy. We held a delightful Alumnae Tea in September with many former members and friends; in October we presented our Really Big Show. Many of us were in Hawaii to cheer on Marilyn Conlan and Joni Bescos for receiving their fifty year pins, as well as our Region 11 competitors, Channelaire, Voices Unlimited, Spirit and Shimmer! Congratulations to one and all!

In December we gave nine holiday performances, spent a whole day delivering our annual singing holiday cards, and had a crazy, fun-filled Christmas party. January found us gearing up for competition, learning new music and developing better vocal and showmanship skills. Several of our quartets delivered Singing Valentines in February, and in March we had Divas and Desserts Day with all the competing quartets in Region 11 and 21 invited to sing their package, along with VHSC singing their set. Three days later Friends and Family Night was shared with our loved ones who support us throughout the year.

In April and May we'll be docents at the Pasadena Showcase House, and on May 16 we will sponsor our fifth annual adjudicated A Cappella Scholarship Festival for middle and high school choruses. We hope you can attend. The information is on our website.

This year we lost two very dear long-time members. Sioux Schultz almost reached the 50-year mark and Eleanor Gustavson was a member for thirty-eight years. Both of these ladies were very special people and they will be sorely missed.

We'd like to thank our coaches for inspiring us to climb ever upward: Dale Syverson, Lynne Smith, Patty Cobb Baker and Nick Papageorge. And special thanks need to go to our director Gerry Papageorge who weekly entreats and encourages our efforts for higher quality in our performance.

Our theme this year has been LIFE IS GOOD and it truly is when you have the love and harmony that we share in our organization.

Good luck to all the competing quartets and choruses. – Sue Peacock

Voices Unlimited is excited about being a part of the AUDIENCE this year and we'll be hooting and hollering for all of you as you take the Regional stage.

We're taking a much-needed break after our awesome experience in Hawaii. We were very proud of our Hawaii performance and extremely grateful for the love and support of Channelaire and all our Region 11 friends. As a chorus, we decided not to compete in our regional competition in an effort to refocus and define a new set of goals for the future. For now, we're just excited to all be together this weekend with our regional sisters and we're also thrilled to be hostessing Fall Festival 2009, so we've got our work cut out for us!

In other exciting news, Dede is back from her three-month sojourn to Australia and she was happy to see some new faces on the risers. All of have been members of the Sweet Adeline organization in the past, so welcome to Billie Thasiah, April Densmore and Colleen Wilson (of Main Event fame). We want to thank our Erin for doing such a great job while Dede was away teaching our Aussie sisters the 'barbershop way'! We'll be practicing our trial scoring skills this weekend and enjoying the talents of our many Region 11 sisters and friends. A special good luck to our very own Dolce - Elaine, Erin, Dede and Wendy! TTFN (ta ta for now!) – Cathy Lee